Send ‘!!’ and I’ll write a para description of your muse from mine’s perspective Tinnaire and Laeynna
Hello, little friend.
She'd thought it as she was sizing up a flowerbed of stone and dirt that she'd put outside on the front steps leading to the apartment. In the collective of talandra roses that was growing upward, she'd found a unicorn beetle. Tinnaire could probably tell her a lot about them. The most Laeynna knew was that she thought they were pretty darn cute.
Most beetles were. Most bugs were, in fact.
As she sat down to observe it waddle along, she admired in quiet and her thoughts turned onto the woman with the hair like it had been kissed by the very sun. Tinnaire, Tinnaire, Tinnaire. That sure was a name. Sometimes thinking of her filled Laeynna with dread. Sometimes it filled her with anger. Sometimes it filled her with something very sombre and wistful.
It was a strange thing. Things could have been different. Should have been. Laeynna hated that they weren't. She also hated that she couldn't just fix it and it had taken a lot of time for her to understand and accept that it wasn't her situation to fix. She had been nothing more than an innocent bystander pulled into a situation she didn't ask to be involved in and was blindsided. And afraid of the consequences of it she had offered multiple times to step aside, only to be met with reassurance that... probably came with the best of intentions but was mostly untrue.
It was really hard not to feel betrayed and lied to, though there was no actual betrayal or lying that had occurred. Only a withholding of information and an inability to predict the future.
Tinnaire, she thought, was a woman of contradictions. Laeynna always tried to be thoughtful and polite. Tried to be conscientious and considerate and kind. And once, she'd been told that in order for the relationship she now found herself tied in most seriously to be celebrated, Tinnaire needed to see it. So Laeynna had been brave and tried to be more in the public eye. Except then came the commentary within earshot. Then came the looks.
Not once. Not twice. Three times. Over the course of one year and then some. Three separate occasions. And Laeynna gave up. The message was well received. She wasn't welcome in public galas and soirees with him. They could go separately, probably, but that defeated the point. They could go and stand on opposite sides of a room, but that also defeated the point.
It felt like Tinnaire set her up to fail on purpose.
It was aggravating. Laeynna liked her. As Laeynna got to know her more, Tinnaire made her think of Alcilia, who had been so formative to her adolescence and many of the things that she liked. Sure, she'd idolised her father, but it had been Alcilia that really got Laeynna into plants and flowers, bugs and spiders, and so much of the natural world.
Laeynna set her jaw a little. She liked Tinnaire so much. Loved her free spirit. Loved that she liked things that other people might have found strange. Knew they had so much in common. That they were accustomed to being misunderstood by many around them. That neither of them really fit into the moulds that had been set for them by older traditional standards.
She didn't like being angry. She didn't like what it did to her. She didn't like how it impacted her. She wanted things to be different. Didn't know how to make things be different. Definitely couldn't force things to be different and she was never going to ask or expect Tinnaire to change how she felt about anything or what she wanted. People didn't work like that and Tinnaire deserved that respect and consideration. She could have asked, but Tinnaire was contradictory and gave mixed messages and Laeynna couldn't determine what was the truth and what was a lie. Would she just get trapped again? She didn't want that. She didn't want to keep trying only for it to proverbially get thrown back in her face.
She just wished she knew what the secret criteria was, because clearly she hadn't hit it yet. Kindness, consideration, being polite, being amicable, none of those things had seemed to work. Maybe there wasn't anything she could do. Maybe nothing Laeynna would do would ever be good enough for Tinnaire.
The botanist's expression twisted up a bit. She didn't like thinking like that either. As she eyed the cute little unicorn beetle as it moved along across the soil of the flower bed, she knew there was still a little hope remaining in her heart. She wanted them to look at flowers together. She wanted Tinnaire to share more of her taxidermy with her. She wanted to learn what Tinnaire knew about bugs. She just wanted them to spend time together. To get to know one another without being coloured by things that were out of their control. They deserved that, she thought. Even when it felt like everything was against her, she didn't want to give up.
How much did she really believe in surrender, anyway?
( @kharrisdawndancer 🐞🦋 )
