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"I...."

For a second, Riven seriously considered running away again... but then what good would that do? He'd be somewhere alone when everything broke apart, with nothing holding him back...

... but nothing to hold on TO, either...

"...I don't know what to do either," he admitted. "I thought maybe if everything was quiet I could find what I was looking for, like people talk about finding themselves and stuff, but I think I lost myself instead... and I don't want to lose you, too. Ghlyssa..."

"I don't want to mess up," Riven said, well aware that in all his efforts to find a quiet space where he could just rest, think, and find some way to balance everything... he had still messed up. And here was the proof. "I... do whatever you need to do." He looked down. "I dunno. If it'll help you to hit me, than hit me. If you want me to go away again until you can... can forgive me, I can do that too... I know. I made a mistake. It was too easy. What's wrong with me? Why can't I do all of this, everything I'm supposed to do?" He looked up at her, vulnerable, yet feeling somehow relieved at having voiced that to her.

"I want to be happy too..." He closed his eyes and sank back into her embrace. "I'm... weaker than I was before I di- um, before however I got here... I can remember it, sometimes. He... I used to have this... I don't know how I can even describe it, but I lost something, and every time I go to the Spirit Realm, it feels like it's being rubbed in my face. I don't want to have to see that, but I have a duty..." He shook his head, and realized how wrong it felt without the familiar brush of her feather against his cheek. "I thought I was going to go out and think about things, but I think I really wanted to escape," he admitted. "Not from you. From... I don't know what."

Riven opened his eyes then and looked up at her. "If I run away again, I'm taking you with me."

"Ssala explained it to me... I remember, I asked hir why I had to be there so much when I'd been dea- um, not there, for such a really really long time... shi said that Chaos had been sealed tightly away, but now that I came back Chaos is awakening again from... from something Ssala won't tell me." Riven frowned. "So I could run, but eventually it'd break and Chaos will be free." He shivered involuntarily. "And he hates us. Everything. I can't do that. I don't want to do that. I just hate feeling like... like I'm barely managing things."

Biome came back into the room then, with Airyn carefully held between two claws. The baby was burbling and waving the bunny around by the ears. "This isis yours," the Fandangle said, with amusement.

Biome withdrew, amused. "We will watch herher as well," they said, curling up together into a metallic mass, whiskers flicking. Airyn waved both arms at them. Shiny! Moving! Want to TUG! Fortunately, she couldn't reach them from Ghlyssa's arms.

"I don't know how it works... I don't know. I don't trust myself, I... this is stupid," Riven said, finally. "I've been stupid. I'm still being stupid." He took a deep breath. "But I did learn something," he admitted. "Running away only makes things worse. I don't think I'm going to try that anymore. I missed you." Tentatively, he floated up and kissed Ghlyssa on the cheek.

"When did you get so noisy?" Riven asked Airyn, who looked back at him with wide eyes before kicking her legs some more. "Um. Other than... um... me not being here... were you okay?" he mumbled in Ghlyssa's direction. "My Guardian... uh-oh. And I have to talk to Ssala, there's... MORE stuff to do now then there was when I left!" He deflated. "Stupid."

"Thab's my dose," Riven protested, then managed to carefully pry Airyn's fingers off. "She sure, um, knows how to hold onto stuff. Um." He reached up and self-conciously ran his fingers through his hair, where the feather had been. "Can I, um, have another feather?" he asked, hesitantly. "It feels wrong without part of you there."