He could see that she was fighting with herself. she wanted to run. she always wanted to run. she was one of the oldest among them but also the flightiest. he could never really trust her with too much responsibility because she always ran when it got hard. she hadn’t always been like that. she stood her ground during the war, but that was the last time he could recall asta standing for anything. it was about to get very hard. they both had some truths to face. she her own and he the lies he’d been covering all these centuries. “we both better get used to the taste of i’m sorry,” he replied as he took a swig from the bottle he’d grabbed. he wanted to help her. did he wish she would’ve come to him sooner? yes. did he want her to suffer just because she hadn’t? no. no one deserved to suffer as they suffered. being cast out was punishment enough, the curses were just cruelty. “we’re immortal and have nothing but time so let’s go with the long version.”
She loved her family. It was why the war had hurt so much. even those who called themselves family no more, they still were. their loss was salt in the wound. after the wall, asta had become tired of her wound’s being salted. it’d become easier not to have them altogether. there was no reward without risk so she had stopped yearning for reward. then the risk became attached to any potential relationship she could concede, and her fleeing became sprints in any direction other then the hard one. she nodded her head somberly, feeling dryness tight in her throat. “the long version it is.” she echoed the words and shut her eyes tightly, preparing herself. she needed to tighten her fist, keep her breath sharp, remind herself to try and be factual. if she were to slip, then there would be no getting up. she would drown in her own emotions on the topic, and she’d rather try and avoid that in front of her youngest brother (however taller then her he may be).
“you know me before the war, always the fool for love.” she smiled humorlessly and with glassy eyes. “after the war- it wasn’t- after the war. i was- well,” she bit onto her breath, hateful of how her communication lacked. how even speaking about it made her sputter like a fool. it was embarrassing. “i was doing what most of us were.” mourning. “love had been easier before the war. before it, i’d gone looking. after, it just kept... finding me.” she said the words with sorrow. like she was being found by something awful then what one would consider love to be. for someone who used to love love, it truly was. “the first time i was convinced it’d been a tragedy. bad luck or misfortunate. i never considered-” she inhaled, blinking back tears and refusing to let them fall. “you tell someone you love them and then they- they die.” she inhaled deeply once again, saying those words out loud was something painful. they hurt to say, to admit, and the worst pain of al came from their truth. she loved someone and they died.
yet she kept loving. maybe she was a idiot, or maybe just a monster. the only thing asta knew of herself for sure, was that she was selfish. she wanted to be better. if not for herself, then for them. her family.
“that first time, it hurt too much for me to think it over deeply. so i didn’t.” another point of her being a fool, an idiot, who didn’t see what was right in front of her. she made effort not to think of him, her first victim. not his face, not his eyes, not his smile, no no. she couldn’t get caught in that grief as well, she just couldn’t. “then it just kept happening.” her voice was frail as she continued. “the people you love keep dying the moment you realize you love them.” again, she inhaled deeply. trying to keep her tone even. “once i knew- once i realized... i began looking into curses. how to break them.” she spent hours mulling and researching, trying to be her own savior. “and i- i tried. there were so many, and i just- i kept trying, i did.” but the trying became more painful with every failure. “i didn’t want to fall in love, but it kept-” she swallowed down the emotion, she had to. “it sounds ridiculous, i know it does. if you don’t want to fall in love, you don’t. but i-” there was a part of her that wondered if that was part of the curse. the lack of control over her own feelings, her own ability to keep them in check. “i feel like a bloody idiot, because it just- it kept happening. i knew what would happen, i knew, but i--- it kept happening. i would call one my friend, or i would see them so barley and then-” her heart skipped a beat in the memories so painful. “then they were gone.” unless asked, she wouldn’t go into the details. speaking their names, speaking about them, it would hurt too much. she wouldn’t be able to keep herself together then (was she now? she was trying, she was trying so hard. he was her little brother. she was already selfish, she was already unreliable, he was her little brother and she was- asta was pathetic). “the best solution i found was...” it was just a word, yet saying it felt something exhausting. “isolation.” it shouldn’t be so painful, yet that word hurt the same as any wound. “but i...” she eyes shut tightly, again trying to fight the emotion. she wanted to be strong. “i’m sorry.” he had said she’d be saying the words, be getting used to them. he was right.
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