“Avoiding your triggers isn’t healing.”
- Inspired by this Inbox Meme {{Trigger Warning: Depressive Thought}}
Her form went ridged at the declaration, regardless of how softly her elven companion had uttered it. Fingers instinctively gripped about her mug, dark irises watching the now tepid tea ripple.
Bare feet padded across creaking floorboards as Kymiel shifted from his place by the table, coming to sit upon the paved steps opposite the mage. She could see his sun-kissed toes out of her peripheral, counting each one as her breathing hitched.
Dhana wanted to bite, to snap at his response. Alas, as the blackette deliberated, the bitter taste of sense ran through Kymiel’s statement.
‘Running from Deekin, avoiding any direct contact with Eli, Xanos and the others…I’m really just hiding, aren’t I? Fuck.’
A calloused hand released battered porcelain, rising to thread wearily through her black mane. Sepia eyes slid closed at the treacherous burn brimming there. Leaning forward, Dhana’s voice was unmistakably hoarse as she spoke.
“I’m…terrified of touching those scars. At what might-…at what most likely will happen,” her head bowed, dark hair spilling over her shoulders. “I’ve held everything I have left together by mere threads, and if one where to snap I…I don’t know what I’d do with myself.”
There was a long, heavy silence, intermitted only by the soft patter of rain drops upon the window pane. Brows clenched hard, face screwed up in an attempt to dismiss her grief. But Lady Luck was scorning her as hot, watery trails streaked down her cheeks.
“You are in survival mode and have been since we met in Waterdeep. You are slowly suffocating yourself.”
Blearily she looked up to find the ranger regarding her intently. He spoke factually, pity and patronising tones nowhere in sight. That didn’t stop Dhana retaining her scowl.
“And what would you suggest, master elf? Charge back to all those I’ve wronged and throw myself at their feet?”
To his credit, Kymiel didn’t even flinch.
Instead, the wood elf leant in, mirroring her pose; arms bent, torso tilted forward as he regarded her.
“Life is for living, not just existing,” Ochre eyes pinned her, “allow yourself to coast along, grasping at straws will only bring you more of the same.”
“Don’t settle for the bare minimum. If you yearn for change, then be the force of your own change."
Dhana visibly sagged, the darkened circle about her eyes far more pronounced in that moment.
“You don’t understand, elf. The amount of change I need is…. insurmountable!” he was lucky she hadn’t thrown the mug in her grasp. There was a deep, wallowing pit of despair growing in her stomach. Everything, all at once, being made aware to her…all her insecurities and faults…
Dry, tanned hands found her own, gently tugging the one in her hair free. Kymiel had moved silently, kneeling before her now. At this proximity she could see age etched into the crows’ feet about his eyes, the crease lines about his lips from sunny smiles. A second of bitter envy.
“Not all at once, Dhana, that would be cruel and unrealistic,” the mage fought the urge to strike him, claw out those bright eyes. Get away, don’t look at me, fuck you- but she forced herself to remained still, “One day, one step or even one action at a time. It matters not how big or small, or other’s perception of its importance, so long as whatever you focus on matters to you.”
The reaction had always been the same whenever the thought of change had arisen. One self-depreciating train of thought domino-ed into a downward spiral. Each belittling voice inside her skull swiping at her until she lay foetal in her covers, unable to will herself to emerge for even daily necessities.
Hence the intervention of her current travelling companion.
Part of her wanted to resent his interference, ward him off with snark and barbed words. But the ranger had seen the crux of her darkness…and remained, stubbornly, at her side. It reminded her painfully of her academic family, the kobold…
So when Kymiel carefully sat beside her, the warmth of a familiar quilt thrown about her shoulders, the mage could do little bar openly weep.
Rock bottom, it seemed, wasn’t enough to keep her friends at bay.