Welcome to Gaia! ::

Trying to communicate with Lavender was… still a mystery to Rhona. She often times thought that she was saying the right things, but it turned out that she had said the complete wrong things. This time though… this time things seemed to work out alright. Whatever Rhona had just said, it had worked. And while it did give her a glimmer of happiness, that small ray of hope was soured by something. Rhona couldn’t put her finger on it, but she also couldn’t keep herself from searching for its name. And search she did, as Lavender caught her breath beside her, leafing through the pages of herself to try and name this strange sensation that gnawed on her guts with rancid teeth.

Anxiety

And not the wild, fiery-eyed stallion of panic that rampaged through her veins and knocked her over from time to time. This was… slower. Fouler. More insidious. Rhona furrowed her brow at the discovery. She knew its name… but why? Why did putrid, agonizing anxiety suddenly begin bubbling in her veins? Even as a newborn in this skin she didn’t feel so… disconcerted. As Lavender wondered about going home and the tension faded from her bones, Rhona wanted to be happy. She wanted to be glad that she’d fixed… whatever had happened… but the fact that there was any worry that her attempts would fail suddenly dawned on her like a sunrise. There was… fear that her attempts would fail. Was that… normal? She had been worried that to touch Lavender to comfort her would bring further pain… did other people feel that? It gave Rhona pause in her comforting for just a breath -- only a heartbeat -- before she pounded the sensation back down and turned her attentions back to Lavender.

I love you.

The words cut through Rhona like December wind, leaving bone-chilling cold wherever their icy fingers curled. Months ago (How many now? Four? Six?) Rhona would have maimed killed and died for those words. But now… now they seemed threatening in a way that Rhona could not understand. Maybe it was what came before them…

I’m sick of being alone…

It was said in conjunction with the confession, almost like a causation. Was it at all possible… had Lavender entertained the thought… that she loved being in love? Her statement would corroborate that idea… I am sick of being alone, so I love you. Was Rhona reading too far into that feeling? Was it her own doubts that seeped into her mind and sewed discontentment? She had worked to hard to set that ship to sail. Sure she liked her, the passion dying down into annoying little butterflies when she thought about her bit love? Rhona had worked hard to heal and to cure herself...

“Nap…” Rhona parotted stupidly. Sleep was the furthest thing from her mind in that moment. She wanted to mutter and pace and roam the city like a cornered animal. She wanted answers. She wanted understanding. Until she had those things she couldn’t even begin to answer Lavender’s confession. Worse, she didn’t know how to go about not answering Lavender’s confession. To answer in kind would be a betrayal too terrible to even think. Did she ignore it? That seemed somehow even worse. But was now the moment to even address it? Yet again, Rhona was faced with the minefield that Lavender had a strange habit of laying out whenever they got to topics like this. One wrong move and Rhona would lose a foot. Or worse…

In the end, Rhona settled for stagnation. Nothing was better than the wrong thing, she decided, and if Lavender asked, Rhona could just say that it wasn’t the moment to give the answer that Lavender deserved. And that was the truth.

“Yeah… nap…”

Rhona’s knees protested after so long crooked against the floor, but she ignored them.

“You go on ahead. I have to turn the stove off… and get the eggs and s**t back in the fridge… I’ll be in in just a second, alright?”