I was not under the impression that I was tempting you away from anything. You can offer my sincerest apologies [ They are not sincere ] toward whomever I have tempted you away from.
Being Iconoclasts is not enough to save Hayame from accidentally thinking Akua might be serious just because she herself considered this so seriously.]
I did not mean to imply-
It was… during the Oracle trial, the fault was mine. I do not blame you, I-
I was relieved, that if I had to meet another in that state… that it was you.
I simply meant…
… And. We have not spoken of my disloyalty, so there is no… no ill will towards you, anyway…
I had-
[She cringes slightly, conflicted over the word and what it seems to imply, bht…]
[ There's something in her tone. It's somewhere between 'why do you need permission' to 'who dares to try to allow you to do what you wish' and in communion, and with their iconoclast bond, it's easy to read these from her tone. There is, of course, such a thing as fidelity in Calernia of course, but it is far less common in Praes -- villains did not Trust, after all -- but more than that.
They had frankly far more libertine opinions about sex and relationships than Hayame had. That was certain. Akua's own object of affection, a woman she thought she might have loved, held multiple lovers at once, and Akua had not been one of them.
She did not consider anything that she did as... disloyal herself, but on top of that: ]
Then it is not disloyalty, is it? If you had "permission"? Not that I think that you should need it to take what you desire.
[She was right, it was wrong... But what was the right one? It was supposed to be one that did not warrant or elicit the impression she gets from Akua, then. One that she herself would give a woman, perhaps, who said something similar... But-]
This is not going correctly...
[In her head, she had practiced a few times before approaching the other woman, but now...]
We. We spoke... about what it meant in my lands, for a woman to take her hair down. And they said... I was free to take my hair down with whoever I chose.
[... Because she was free, now. Because she should be allowed to take what she desires. But it had felt so confusing, to a woman used to the idea of monogamy being the only path women were allowed, to men not forgiving such things. So what-]
So... There should... There should be no ill wills. "Disloyalty" is... my own issue. I meant to reassure you...
[ Her tone is thoughtful, as she considers this. Hayame is... from a unique, different world than she. A place where there were so many more... rules — and this comes from a woman who if she starts to monologue, understands she will be defeated — that do not make sense to her. Propriety that didn't make sense, things that she thought should be left to rot in the snows that reflect Hayame's communion.
She does not say that, though. She only nods, in communion. ]
You should only do what you wish. If it will be easier, should I encourage you elsewhere, were you to be in need again?
[ Akua does not like this, the idea of being "disloyal". That Hayame would consider their dalliances so makes her wonder — would she even enjoy it? Even though her expressions during the oracle had suggested that she did... She wonders. Is it truly as enjoyable as she'd suggested? ]
[There were so many rules... and she had only told the people she speaks to here a tenth of them at most. How she should wear her hair, how she should hand a severed head to her master, how she should dress, how she should speak... And most importantly, the tenants of loyalty so important to a warrior. To women, too, in a different way. Here, she lives a life with one hoof still in that world, and one in Kenos. Some part of her longs for the familiar and yet chafes beneath its oppression, and yet the freedoms and pleasures she could enjoy here called, likewise, leaving her...
Conflicted. At times. But perhaps the most troublesome... was the heart of a maiden hidden beneath the hard steel of a warrior that had needed to be cold in order to survive. Somehow, that bit of her hearts had survived.]
Akua, I-
[The part that makes it clear, even through Communion, that Hayame is blushing. In her home in Alenroux, curled up next to someone else who slumbers while she fitfully remains awake... She is blushing. In order to try and not mess up the words she takes time to answer, it comes slowly, because she hadn't expected her bungles to lead to this turn in topic, but-]
I have only... ever been with three people.
[Akua, Set, and the man she had kissed before parting within the tunnels of the labyrinth not knowing all the citizens of Springstar, Highstorm, Alenroux, and Kowloon would see. By her world's concepts of goodness in wives and women, it should only have been one. By her world's treatment of jinba mares... It had been a very realistic fear of hers that once she was sold, that number would raise rapidly from "zero" whether she wished it to or not. So now- If she had a choice-]
If I were in that state again, as you found me...
[She cannot discount the possibility. She has experienced it multiple times now, in various ways, her heat or just a mental sort of lust being triggered by outside influences in this magic infested world. Sometimes she had successfully bore with it, suffering alone, and sometimes... the times that had been better...]
I would be... [Will Akua like the word? She doesn't know-]
I could only be grateful if you did not encourage me elsewhere.
[Three is... She would like the number to stay "three", that is what she thinks. She doesn't want to share herself that way with strangers that might happen upon her in desperation, even if it might, purely physically, feel good. She had half-protested to herself against Akua's lips and against her throat when they began to give in during the trial...
[ Akua read the papers, but blissfully, Hayame had been free of any that she had read (though it was such a small thing, a kiss, next to the lurid acts of them, or Kiritsubo, or any of the sensational deaths.) She knew one, for certain. Her impression of a mouth smiled, and it is near-gentle, almost, though from a Praesi, like her, it's nearly dangerous.
Only because it is rare from her. ]
Then I would be honored if you have need to trust me again.
[ There's the sense of a bowed head. ] I only do not want to be something you are ashamed of, Hayame. We are friends, and if there are benefits to that friendship occasionally, then that is something I am proud of.
[ Once, she had heard Indrani whisper to Cat: That is that, and this is this, between their bedsheets, when they had traveled to the underdark, when they had made love frequently enough Akua had thought they were in love, until she'd seen the way Indrani had looked at Masego, and understood. She understood friendship now, she understood what it meant.
Romantic entaglements to her, had always been games of politics or power. She had indulged when it suited her, but more than that, she used her body as a tool, a promise, something to dangle before those whom she needed something from, and who would be distracted. She had not felt like that with Hayame in some time. It felt... comfortable. Like two friends who had needs, and satisfied them.
[Hayame understood that, at least. What it was to be honored. (More frequently, what it was to be disgraced.) But whichever way she knew… ]
I am not…
[She thinks she will say she is not ashamed, but that… that is not quite true. And Akua would know it was not true, and the lie would cause only doubts. But she has… she cannot allow her to think-]
What I am ashamed of… is not being able to resist the compulsions of magic. Of not… of not knowing what I must do after.
Not… that it is you.
[She hesitates. A long moment. Before,]
Akua, you… You loved that woman of your world, did you not? The one who… the one who killed you?
However she doesn't know where this is going, and the question is present in Communion. She cannot change Hayame's hangups about sex, after all. Or her heat. That is her burden alone to bear, but she would offer what she could, when Hayame asked.
The biggest problem was, that for all of Calernia's status as a backwater continent in the ass crack of creation, they were surprisingly egalitarian. Even Procer, the religious half of the continent wouldn't have even blinked twice at Hayame. The Dwarves might, but. Well. Fuck them. That's why the Herald of the Deeps had destroyed the empire. (Literally. The Most Powerful Dwarf destroyed the Dwarven Empire because they wouldn't let him marry his husband. Go off, king.) ]
[In… her own way. Of course. That… gives Hayame pause, as she debates for the umpteenth time whether it was even wise to be asking these questions. If she shouldn’t be asking them of someone else. But who else was there? It wasn’t as if… it wasn’t as if Hayame had ever known a normal woman, or had a normal friendship.
Despite the awkward wording of her question… it at least had nothing to do with feelings about what is natural or who one should love or sleep with. Well, alright, she would find it strange to marry sometimes, if the sex were the same, because what’s the point if you aren’t begetting heirs, or if the rank were too dissimilar, because what use is the political alliance, but…
Hayame not being all that better from dwarves apparently aside, what she’s really trying to ask is…]
How did-
[She feels like such a stupid filly. She should have just gone back to bed-]
[ Because it's colored in the misery of their circumstance, of Akua's folly, and her attempts at redemption — and the fact that it wasn't something she could simply earn. There was no coming back from her path, as she'd learned, so how could love factor into it?
Did she love her, even still? Yes, but it was a complex love. It was not the simple things that they spoke of in stories, and attributed to knights. She was Praesi, and thus she could never be simple. ]
She was my rival before she was ally and warden. There is a certain kind of love in being enemies, too. I dreamed of dominating her for so long, that perhaps one could say that I loved her since we were only girls.
If you told me it was not, I would ask you to stop lying to me.
[Love has never seemed simple to her. It was presented as such, in the ballads, of course, the only potential struggles coming less from feelings and more from forces that might try to keep destined or desperate lovers apart...
But that could not be true. Not if she was loving. If Akua was, too, apparently. In a different way.]
Is. That is love... and not just desire, or obsession?
[After a long moment, realizing what it might sound like-]
I do not say it to cast doubt on what you felt. I am just-
[Is it? No one had ever set her down and told her what love was. She'd had an Armless broodmare who died foaling, not a mother who held her or talked her through the struggles of first loves as she grew... There had been no female friends with which to talk things over with, no... also, no one to fall in love with, because every man (and woman) around her was-]
That is why... I ask.
I thought it was supposed to be... Of course you desire them, you wish to... to share a pillow with them... and spend your heats with them... but surely...
Wanting to share a pillow and have sex is lust, darling.
[ She said it matter-of-factly. ]
Mind, I understand the confusion, as greater scholars than I have been confused between the two. Lust and Love can come together, or be separate, or even not exist at all, when it comes to relationships of this nature.
[ Which, Praes was pretty good about understanding, actually. Akua had seen every spectrum of it, but even so, her picture of love was...still warped. ]
Love is... something that means that you value them. More than simply heat, or lust. Whether that is their presence, their insight, the challenge they provide... there is no singular definition.
Why, one of my valued friends, Masego, does not desire the person he cares most deeply for carnally, but they value each other deeply in other ways. They... love each other, even without the shared pillow or heats.
[Where she comes from probably has to do with how she reacts to that word being paired with her and her desires, but… she seems to have surprised herself with how close to a snap that had been, knowing such a thing misplaced. She-]
It is about… it is about trust.
[Or she would have far many notches on her proverbial bedpost than III, and none of them until months into life in Kenos.]
I can… I weathered every heat all by myself. All of them, every season but winter, every damn moon, from the moment I flowered.
[And she had refused to let lust rule her, or win, or even let her desire anyone in a fantasy, and she had rejected it as dirty, as bestial like humans did, and so to hear it now-]
I will never… I would never allow myself to desire someone I did not trust… !
[No, gods, she can’t tell tell Akua she never even thought of her lover as handsome or sexually desirable when they first met… can she? That’s so rude seeming…]
… I know there can be love without lust. Or. I had hoped there could be. I just… wanted to know if there was some easy way to tell.
… But there is no easy way, I suppose.
I apologize.
It was likely foolish of me to ask in the first place.
For me, for example, I respect and am challenged by both you and Set, and while... [ A soft laugh. ] There is no lack of affection, romantic love is... different.
You are the only person who can answer it. Whether or not you feel love. It is not something you have to be right or wrong about, either.
[She wants to protest, that she isn't a fool who would think there is, but... Perhaps it will only dig her own grave deeper. Make her sound like some maiden who hadn't known anything about love at all, to the point where she would ask who she did and expect understanding to come to her.
... Well, it was probably too late for that.
They are both Iconoclasts, so there is little use hiding how... sullen Hayame feels. Should she ask... no, Liem did not wish to hear of such affairs, and there was... no, not him, either, so-]
... Thank you. For your advice.
[She will still say that, though. She had bothered the other woman in the middle of the night. And even if she feels no closer to the answer to the question she'd truly wanted to ask... there was the matter of the lead-in question, which was. Still important.]
I will take you up on your offer, by the way. About the.
[ They have a deep connection, between their shared aspect. She reaches out with her mind, and shares with her the path to a pharmacy, makes sure it is from familiar, well-trodden landmarks. There is also a note of sympathy, as she knows she did not really answer the question.
Unfortunately, she knows that Hayame would need to answer it herself. And if she did not, then it would not be so. If she did, and found later that she did not, yes, even then. She will have learned more about herself.
Though, she also knew, she was different than most here. Praesi did not have such...emotional attachments most of the time. Her mother had not. Masego's fathers had, but... the Warlock had always been rather unusual. Given the group he ran with, that was not surprising. ]
You will find your answer, I am sure of it, Hayame.
No. Hayame shoves that weak thought back down where it belonged. She did not need anyone to go with her. She can tackle the fears of womanhood all by herself. In fact- In fact, no one seeing her balk over buying such things was for the best. Akua was doing her a favor.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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I do not. Indulge that-
I try to-
You are the only one I have been disloyal with, so-
[... This went way better when she ran it in her head.]
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[ Another flicker of amusement. ]
I was not under the impression that I was tempting you away from anything. You can offer my sincerest apologies [ They are not sincere ] toward whomever I have tempted you away from.
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No, that’s not-
Being Iconoclasts is not enough to save Hayame from accidentally thinking Akua might be serious just because she herself considered this so seriously.]
I did not mean to imply-
It was… during the Oracle trial, the fault was mine. I do not blame you, I-
I was relieved, that if I had to meet another in that state… that it was you.
I simply meant…
… And. We have not spoken of my disloyalty, so there is no… no ill will towards you, anyway…
I had-
[She cringes slightly, conflicted over the word and what it seems to imply, bht…]
“Permission”...
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[ There's something in her tone. It's somewhere between 'why do you need permission' to 'who dares to try to allow you to do what you wish' and in communion, and with their iconoclast bond, it's easy to read these from her tone. There is, of course, such a thing as fidelity in Calernia of course, but it is far less common in Praes -- villains did not Trust, after all -- but more than that.
They had frankly far more libertine opinions about sex and relationships than Hayame had. That was certain. Akua's own object of affection, a woman she thought she might have loved, held multiple lovers at once, and Akua had not been one of them.
She did not consider anything that she did as... disloyal herself, but on top of that: ]
Then it is not disloyalty, is it? If you had "permission"? Not that I think that you should need it to take what you desire.
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[She was right, it was wrong... But what was the right one? It was supposed to be one that did not warrant or elicit the impression she gets from Akua, then. One that she herself would give a woman, perhaps, who said something similar... But-]
This is not going correctly...
[In her head, she had practiced a few times before approaching the other woman, but now...]
We. We spoke... about what it meant in my lands, for a woman to take her hair down. And they said... I was free to take my hair down with whoever I chose.
[... Because she was free, now. Because she should be allowed to take what she desires. But it had felt so confusing, to a woman used to the idea of monogamy being the only path women were allowed, to men not forgiving such things. So what-]
So... There should... There should be no ill wills. "Disloyalty" is... my own issue. I meant to reassure you...
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[ Her tone is thoughtful, as she considers this. Hayame is... from a unique, different world than she. A place where there were so many more... rules — and this comes from a woman who if she starts to monologue, understands she will be defeated — that do not make sense to her. Propriety that didn't make sense, things that she thought should be left to rot in the snows that reflect Hayame's communion.
She does not say that, though. She only nods, in communion. ]
You should only do what you wish. If it will be easier, should I encourage you elsewhere, were you to be in need again?
[ Akua does not like this, the idea of being "disloyal". That Hayame would consider their dalliances so makes her wonder — would she even enjoy it? Even though her expressions during the oracle had suggested that she did... She wonders. Is it truly as enjoyable as she'd suggested? ]
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Conflicted. At times. But perhaps the most troublesome... was the heart of a maiden hidden beneath the hard steel of a warrior that had needed to be cold in order to survive. Somehow, that bit of her hearts had survived.]
Akua, I-
[The part that makes it clear, even through Communion, that Hayame is blushing. In her home in Alenroux, curled up next to someone else who slumbers while she fitfully remains awake... She is blushing. In order to try and not mess up the words she takes time to answer, it comes slowly, because she hadn't expected her bungles to lead to this turn in topic, but-]
I have only... ever been with three people.
[Akua, Set, and the man she had kissed before parting within the tunnels of the labyrinth not knowing all the citizens of Springstar, Highstorm, Alenroux, and Kowloon would see. By her world's concepts of goodness in wives and women, it should only have been one. By her world's treatment of jinba mares... It had been a very realistic fear of hers that once she was sold, that number would raise rapidly from "zero" whether she wished it to or not. So now- If she had a choice-]
If I were in that state again, as you found me...
[She cannot discount the possibility. She has experienced it multiple times now, in various ways, her heat or just a mental sort of lust being triggered by outside influences in this magic infested world. Sometimes she had successfully bore with it, suffering alone, and sometimes... the times that had been better...]
I would be... [Will Akua like the word? She doesn't know-]
I could only be grateful if you did not encourage me elsewhere.
[Three is... She would like the number to stay "three", that is what she thinks. She doesn't want to share herself that way with strangers that might happen upon her in desperation, even if it might, purely physically, feel good. She had half-protested to herself against Akua's lips and against her throat when they began to give in during the trial...
But it had been...
Good.]
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[ Akua read the papers, but blissfully, Hayame had been free of any that she had read (though it was such a small thing, a kiss, next to the lurid acts of them, or Kiritsubo, or any of the sensational deaths.) She knew one, for certain. Her impression of a mouth smiled, and it is near-gentle, almost, though from a Praesi, like her, it's nearly dangerous.
Only because it is rare from her. ]
Then I would be honored if you have need to trust me again.
[ There's the sense of a bowed head. ] I only do not want to be something you are ashamed of, Hayame. We are friends, and if there are benefits to that friendship occasionally, then that is something I am proud of.
[ Once, she had heard Indrani whisper to Cat: That is that, and this is this, between their bedsheets, when they had traveled to the underdark, when they had made love frequently enough Akua had thought they were in love, until she'd seen the way Indrani had looked at Masego, and understood. She understood friendship now, she understood what it meant.
Romantic entaglements to her, had always been games of politics or power. She had indulged when it suited her, but more than that, she used her body as a tool, a promise, something to dangle before those whom she needed something from, and who would be distracted. She had not felt like that with Hayame in some time. It felt... comfortable. Like two friends who had needs, and satisfied them.
That felt... good. Different, but good. ]
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I am not…
[She thinks she will say she is not ashamed, but that… that is not quite true. And Akua would know it was not true, and the lie would cause only doubts. But she has… she cannot allow her to think-]
What I am ashamed of… is not being able to resist the compulsions of magic. Of not… of not knowing what I must do after.
Not… that it is you.
[She hesitates. A long moment. Before,]
Akua, you… You loved that woman of your world, did you not? The one who… the one who killed you?
[That… sure is a sentence.]
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[ A pause, and then: ]
She kissed me once.
[ Once. As she drove a blade into her stomach.
However she doesn't know where this is going, and the question is present in Communion. She cannot change Hayame's hangups about sex, after all. Or her heat. That is her burden alone to bear, but she would offer what she could, when Hayame asked.
The biggest problem was, that for all of Calernia's status as a backwater continent in the ass crack of creation, they were surprisingly egalitarian. Even Procer, the religious half of the continent wouldn't have even blinked twice at Hayame. The Dwarves might, but. Well. Fuck them. That's why the Herald of the Deeps had destroyed the empire. (Literally. The Most Powerful Dwarf destroyed the Dwarven Empire because they wouldn't let him marry his husband. Go off, king.) ]
Why do you ask?
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Despite the awkward wording of her question… it at least had nothing to do with feelings about what is natural or who one should love or sleep with. Well, alright, she would find it strange to marry sometimes, if the sex were the same, because what’s the point if you aren’t begetting heirs, or if the rank were too dissimilar, because what use is the political alliance, but…
Hayame not being all that better from dwarves apparently aside, what she’s really trying to ask is…]
How did-
[She feels like such a stupid filly. She should have just gone back to bed-]
How did you know… ?
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[ Because it's colored in the misery of their circumstance, of Akua's folly, and her attempts at redemption — and the fact that it wasn't something she could simply earn. There was no coming back from her path, as she'd learned, so how could love factor into it?
Did she love her, even still? Yes, but it was a complex love. It was not the simple things that they spoke of in stories, and attributed to knights. She was Praesi, and thus she could never be simple. ]
She was my rival before she was ally and warden. There is a certain kind of love in being enemies, too. I dreamed of dominating her for so long, that perhaps one could say that I loved her since we were only girls.
[ Praesi.............. ]
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[Love has never seemed simple to her. It was presented as such, in the ballads, of course, the only potential struggles coming less from feelings and more from forces that might try to keep destined or desperate lovers apart...
But that could not be true. Not if she was loving. If Akua was, too, apparently. In a different way.]
Is. That is love... and not just desire, or obsession?
[After a long moment, realizing what it might sound like-]
I do not say it to cast doubt on what you felt. I am just-
I am trying to... understand.
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[ She asked, an owlish blink in communion. ]
It is all the same, to us.
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[Is it? No one had ever set her down and told her what love was. She'd had an Armless broodmare who died foaling, not a mother who held her or talked her through the struggles of first loves as she grew... There had been no female friends with which to talk things over with, no... also, no one to fall in love with, because every man (and woman) around her was-]
That is why... I ask.
I thought it was supposed to be... Of course you desire them, you wish to... to share a pillow with them... and spend your heats with them... but surely...
I do not know.
Is it not...
Is it the "challenge" again?
[Like Akua had said before. About friendship.]
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[ She said it matter-of-factly. ]
Mind, I understand the confusion, as greater scholars than I have been confused between the two. Lust and Love can come together, or be separate, or even not exist at all, when it comes to relationships of this nature.
[ Which, Praes was pretty good about understanding, actually. Akua had seen every spectrum of it, but even so, her picture of love was...still warped. ]
Love is... something that means that you value them. More than simply heat, or lust. Whether that is their presence, their insight, the challenge they provide... there is no singular definition.
Why, one of my valued friends, Masego, does not desire the person he cares most deeply for carnally, but they value each other deeply in other ways. They... love each other, even without the shared pillow or heats.
1/3
It is not about lust. Not to me.
[Where she comes from probably has to do with how she reacts to that word being paired with her and her desires, but… she seems to have surprised herself with how close to a snap that had been, knowing such a thing misplaced. She-]
It is about… it is about trust.
[Or she would have far many notches on her proverbial bedpost than III, and none of them until months into life in Kenos.]
I can… I weathered every heat all by myself. All of them, every season but winter, every damn moon, from the moment I flowered.
[And she had refused to let lust rule her, or win, or even let her desire anyone in a fantasy, and she had rejected it as dirty, as bestial like humans did, and so to hear it now-]
I will never… I would never allow myself to desire someone I did not trust… !
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No, Akua didn’t it like that, probably, so she bites her tongue for a moment, trying to…
Refocus.]
… Excuse me.
[“Sorry”?]
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I am.
… Confused.
Until he… I did not even…
[No, gods, she can’t tell tell Akua she never even thought of her lover as handsome or sexually desirable when they first met… can she? That’s so rude seeming…]
… I know there can be love without lust. Or. I had hoped there could be. I just… wanted to know if there was some easy way to tell.
… But there is no easy way, I suppose.
I apologize.
It was likely foolish of me to ask in the first place.
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What you want from someone is trust, and therefore, you have it.
[ It perhaps, should be be so simple, but to Akua... it is. Why wouldn't it be? ]
You value it, after all, yes?
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[Doesn't everyone? She almost asks that. Until she remembers she’s asking a Praesi and a chaotic war god about how they knew they were in love.
Sigh.]
I… I do not know.
I trust… Liem Talbott, for example, but I do not… love him…
[Not… romantically??? Ugh, this is so stupid-]
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For me, for example, I respect and am challenged by both you and Set, and while... [ A soft laugh. ] There is no lack of affection, romantic love is... different.
You are the only person who can answer it. Whether or not you feel love. It is not something you have to be right or wrong about, either.
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... Well, it was probably too late for that.
They are both Iconoclasts, so there is little use hiding how... sullen Hayame feels. Should she ask... no, Liem did not wish to hear of such affairs, and there was... no, not him, either, so-]
... Thank you. For your advice.
[She will still say that, though. She had bothered the other woman in the middle of the night. And even if she feels no closer to the answer to the question she'd truly wanted to ask... there was the matter of the lead-in question, which was. Still important.]
I will take you up on your offer, by the way. About the.
The "pharmacy".
[Just. You know. In case. Just in case.]
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[ They have a deep connection, between their shared aspect. She reaches out with her mind, and shares with her the path to a pharmacy, makes sure it is from familiar, well-trodden landmarks. There is also a note of sympathy, as she knows she did not really answer the question.
Unfortunately, she knows that Hayame would need to answer it herself. And if she did not, then it would not be so. If she did, and found later that she did not, yes, even then. She will have learned more about herself.
Though, she also knew, she was different than most here. Praesi did not have such...emotional attachments most of the time. Her mother had not. Masego's fathers had, but... the Warlock had always been rather unusual. Given the group he ran with, that was not surprising. ]
You will find your answer, I am sure of it, Hayame.
1/2
No. Hayame shoves that weak thought back down where it belonged. She did not need anyone to go with her. She can tackle the fears of womanhood all by herself. In fact- In fact, no one seeing her balk over buying such things was for the best. Akua was doing her a favor.]
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