Lacie flinches when she hears the call of her name from someone else, a higher pitch she'd recognize in her dreams. Ah, so Zuri has come as well? She doesn't get to hear what Zech has to say for himself, but instead, she hears Zuri's desperation.
The frost spreads thicker, so Zech feels he is at risk of frost burn from his bracelet. Is this what it is? Is this leap in logic the basis for her fear of being abandoned? To be left behind again?
Lacie turns to face them, and this time, her gaze slowly opens to see them properly. She says they're just fooling around, but is that something one does when they see each other as family? Flirt as though they're lovers? Somehow, it almost feels hollow as the frost reminds her of what had happened.
Never do anything to hurt her, she says, but Lacie somehow feels as though she is remembering all the compounding memories of where she's heard that exact same line. Images overlay over Zuri of women and men who have said the same thing and somehow, they still did manage to hurt her. Humans seem to always be the same, aren't they? What remains of Lucy's heart aches, and Lacie's love for the girl reminds her that Zuri means it. After all, she is nothing more than a young girl—ignorant and childish.
And in the end, she can't help but only love her.
❝It'd be easy enough for you to leave me behind,❞ Lacie says, the light flickering out of her eyes. It's the same look Lucy has made many times before, smiling without it quite reaching her eyes. After all, Zuri's done it before, so what's stopping her from doing it again for another boy? Where's that line to be drawn if it's a boy she loves?
And then Lacie wonders as she declares her love for her—is that the love that the soul of the other Zuri is proclaiming or is it this Zuri that's saying that?
❝Because what does it matter what I say?❞ When they clearly didn't give any due consideration to how she might feel if she found out about how they talked to each other, what they were like? It's a familiarity that they share, she wants to logically consider, but Lacie couldn't forgive how lines were crossed when they talked to each other like that.
Lacie watches as the tears fall down Zuri's cheeks as she turns to apologize to Zech, who wears an expression she's only seen scantly before in the world before this one.
❝If you didn't have me—?❞ Zech was too comfortable and safe with how she felt about him that he could flirt with another girl? Was she not enough? That such things would be easily forgivable? To forgive either of them? Did they both feel the same about Lacie's love for either of them? Comfortable?
But Zech begins to clarify and explain his muddled feelings since arriving here. To say that she wasn't curious why he had lunged for her the moment they first laid eyes on each other would be an understatement. To question why he feels so strangely distant and yet filled with an untold amount of grief amid the myriad images of his past is something she never wanted to press. Zech didn't seem comfortable with talking about it and she didn't have the heart to press him.
Lacie's heart goes out to him now that she has more clarification on the pure, unadulterated hatred and grief-stricken expression he had when he faced that woman. In that vision she had seen of his past, this was one she had always wondered and now found an answer for. It explained that night in the cave when he seemed as heartbroken as she was.
❝Then why did either of you talk to each other like that if that's how both of you felt?❞ she asks with a wavering lilt, realizing she trusts them and doesn't think anything is wrong with them being together. She hasn't until those visions have told her otherwise. It's very easy to misunderstand from listening to such a conversation. ❝Just because I love both of you doesn't mean I am okay with either of you flirting with each other like that? Talk to each other like lovers? Because is that not how lovers talk? Just like that? Or am I wrong?❞
There's a borderline hysteria she feels, a panic, questioning what sort of relationships she's been having. Lacie shakily rises to standing, revealing scrapped knees and hands. Those visions she saw didn't help alleviate the hurt, but who was she to compare when Zech fought against her own "other half?" Words can't even encapsulate her feelings about Zuri, so of course, it's not any easier. It's why she had no issue with trusting either of them to be with one another as what she had thought to be family... not... not whatever their discussions were like.
Somehow, this feels terribly selfish of her. Who was she to judge what they did in their time together? She trusts them, doesn't she? Isn't she supposed to trust them?
Doesn't she already know that both Zechariah and Zuri are foolish? So why is she surprised? Why does it hurt?
❝Or did you think such flirtations would be okay simply because... because I wasn't there?❞ she asks, her voice falling off near the end. Or did they simply forget that she was in the picture? She caught them once before and had already expressed her displeasure on the matter, but it looks like they conveniently forgot about that, too.
