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last online Apr 19, 2013 18:45:53 GMT -5
Master
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Dec 16, 2012 1:17:45 GMT -5
Post by Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy on Dec 16, 2012 1:17:45 GMT -5
Ervisa looked at Horst after he finished, with the saddest grey eyes anyone had ever seen, dripping tears, and red from crying and a long night of drinking. The blue flecks in them seemed dead, and dark as a stormy ocean. The ex-Jedi's angular face was similarly sad, and as she straightened, her voice faltered.
"Or you never get over it."
That was the sad alternative that remained for the person without willpower, without self-discipline and persistence. While Horst meant well, and while maybe he was right for himself, his statement wasn't right for Ervisa.
"You trap every defeat and every failure in your mind, and they come back at you when you're alone, when you're trying to sleep. You see it all again, and you feel weak, and ashamed, and afraid and alone. You do what you can to cope."
The Mirialan woman stared at her newly refilled cocktail in disgust and closed her eyes, feeling herself sinking even deeper.
"You drink. You get drunk so your forget, or so you don't care. Alcohol makes the bad memories go away. And when that's not enough, you take a few lines of spice, or maybe a death stick. And you sink deeper."
As much as she wanted to stop her confessional and run away into the street and just keeping running forever, Ervisa couldn't stop. She had to say this, she had to finish it. Now that she'd begun, she couldn't bear to stop until it had all been said.
"And then when you're lonely, you try to fill the void in your life. You sleep with a guy, or two. You spend every night in a different bed just so you don't have to feel that sadness, or feel like you're alone. And you can't stop."
Ervisa started to cry again, ashamed that the tough pilot was now a sad and wayward girl, pouring her heart out to a man. The only way it could have been worse was if he was a stranger.
"You can never stop."
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Fromikeable
Keeper Of The Techxts
1,616 posts
628 likes
...and I'm comin'! *guitar riff*
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last online Jun 22, 2023 19:35:57 GMT -5
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Dec 16, 2012 1:34:16 GMT -5
Post by Fromikeable on Dec 16, 2012 1:34:16 GMT -5
Horst frowned. It had always been that simple to him... but then again, he was a stubborn ass. Ervisa, and other people for that matter, weren't like him. They couldn't just shrug it off, do what they needed to get over it, and then actually get over it.
For other people, it wasn't that simple.
For a long while Horst looked into this sad, crying, bloodshot grey eyes. He looked at their pupils, trying to see the broken and shattered heart behind them making itself known, breaking even further under the load it was bearing. Even the strongest hearts bent like rubber sometimes, and Ervisa's, it seemed, had been under a huge stress for a long time.
And it made Horst sad. He frowned, very obviously depressed by the sight of her and her profession that she couldn't get over it. It made him wish that he could do it for her, that she could borrow whatever stubbornness and supposed courage he had to beat off her issues and put them to rest, even if it meant that he'd have to deal with some of his own.
He wished that he was the one sitting there crying. Not Ervisa. She didn't deserve that.
His hand stopped, and he was quiet.
" ... then ya' don't stop..." He sighed, dabbing his own eye with his other hand, his voice trembling a little in empathy. He wouldn't let himself crack up though; that was exactly what Ervisa didn't need.
" ... but ya' treat it." He exhaled again. "Ya' find somebody, anybody else ta' help you. Ya' let them have the troubles too, put 'em in misery, break 'em and beat 'em down." Another gulp.
"Ya' make their life hell, and ya' both know it." And finally a sigh, deep and shaky, like a wine glass balanced on the tippity-top of a skyscraper.
"And when ya' do... ya' can start thinkin' about how ta' stop. Ya' don't, but... ya' get ta' think about it n' not hurt as much."
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last online Apr 19, 2013 18:45:53 GMT -5
Master
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Dec 16, 2012 1:46:58 GMT -5
Post by Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy on Dec 16, 2012 1:46:58 GMT -5
Horst's simple words and gruff voice weren't exactly what the doctor had prescribed for treating a broken heart, and the human man himself wasn't what everyone aspired to.
However, despite that, his words were powerful. Let it happen, find someone to rely on.
Maybe, just maybe, that was Ervisa's problem, that she'd been so afraid of repeating her losses that she never let anyone get close. The failures repeated and the loneliness magnified, and the road had no end in sight. Only dismay.
While the Mirialan woman never thought about it, she did have to face the facts. If she didn't run out of luck and die in some botched mission or freak accident, she was going to get old. Her beauty would fade in ten years or so, and her supply of sex would dry up. She'd be lonely, and her liver would stop allowing these binges of alcohol. In the end she'd be left with nothing. If she was unlucky, she'd be a homeless woman living in a box in some dank alley.
If she was very lucky, Ervisa Therani would be a shriveled old crone with a hundred cats, and she'd give them all names and spend her every moment of attention on them. In the end, one of them would outlive her, and she'd die alone, leaving no one behind.
That future, it didn't make her happy, and now she had an alternative.
Horst.
He would be there to support her, and to love her. He would be a bastion for her to dump her troubles on, to talk with. He'd be a sort of big human teddy bear. Most of all, he'd be someone to care. Someone to remember her if she died, someone to make sure she had a funeral. No cats.
Still crying, the Mirialan woman wrapped her arms around Horst and buried her face in his strong shoulder, sobbing freely. All her concerns and worries, fears and anxieties, were laid on him, and for once she didn't feel so alone.
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Fromikeable
Keeper Of The Techxts
1,616 posts
628 likes
...and I'm comin'! *guitar riff*
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last online Jun 22, 2023 19:35:57 GMT -5
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Dec 16, 2012 2:05:06 GMT -5
Post by Fromikeable on Dec 16, 2012 2:05:06 GMT -5
For a minute they just stared at each other, like two statues. The world beyond those two stools in the bar could have frozen solid and disintegrated for all either of them cared. People passing and talking nearby didn't matter. The bar didn't matter. The drinks didn't matter. Life itself didn't really matter even.
All that mattered was that Ervisa Therani was clinging to Horst Stellar's shoulder, crying her heart out as he let her pour her troubles into his.
Horst didn't say anything. He didn't even blink. He shifted his arm, spinning on his stool lightly and gently guiding Ervisa into his chest, wrapping his arms around her, coming to shelter her within the crux of his own body. He became her shell; if anything or anyone even so much as wanted to look at her, they would need to get through him first.
And there was no chance in hell that Horst would ever let anyone.
And they both sat there for a long while. The world around them was simply invisible sights and inaudible noise. It was intangible feelings and odorless scents.
For a while, as they both sat there, simply focusing, the entire galaxy was shrunk down to the person they held.
Exeunt
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