"have you ever been taken advantage of?"
deep ass starters / accepting
ultear’s hand paused, where they were tying up her ribbon and she felt her entire body freeze for just a moment. slowly, ultear let out a breathe and then continued the small morning ritual of setting her hair together. sometimes, it truly was the smaller acts of the day that allowed you to move along through time. and she was technically the expert on time, wasn’t she?
not as much as she wished she was.
“well...” ultear tied off the last ribbon and placed her hands on her lap. she always preferred to be doing something rather than nothing, so perhaps that was why her fingers pinched and played with the extra skin on her hands. smaller rituals, indeed. “short answer: yes. i suppose...i was. i’m sure someone else with a more objective opinion on everything would see it that way.”
not that ultear had anyone in her life who would have such an objectiveness. but the woman prided herself on her self awareness, prided herself on being objective. yet. it was hard to be objective on the self. most of the time, she preferred it when the little ultear in her head told her to suck it up and take all the blame. it was, in fact, easier that way. easier on herself, easier on those she chose to care about now.
honesty, however, was not easy but she could do it now. she had too. being open and honest was important. this was another type of honesty. but there were some events in ultear’s life that meredy didn’t need to know. things ultear didn’t want to burden on someone so young. she already failed at that so many times and yet, here they were, outside in the world once again and together.
“when it comes to...being taken advantage of, there is mostly the sub context of ‘you were trying to help someone and they backstabbed you’.” not that meredy needed the reminder, but the context was needed. and that hurt in it’s own special way that ultear deserved, frankly. “but truthfully, i was too young at the time to really know what was going on to even attempt to try and be nice first. it was more...taken advantage of in the way that i had little choice to begin with.” ultear paused, trying to find the right, more honest words. no excuses, ultear. “but then, i grew up and i did make choices and i must live with them anyway. just because the beginning was rough doesn’t mean i have excuses to get lazy about the ending. i’ll admit, i faltered, but not anymore.” and that was a promise. a promise of change, of things being different now and forever. and...that was why honesty was important.
the words spilled out until she was able to catch them and she let go of her hands. a part of her wanted to reach out and tuck some of meredy’s pink locks behind her ear, but she didn’t. instead, she flattened some of her own hair on her and offered a smile.
“does that answer your question, meredy?”
