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Post by Sevyrn on Aug 30, 2020 0:07:07 GMT -6
Home was supposed to be peace - somewhere to feel safe and at ease. Sevyrn had not felt at peace anywhere in the last few weeks, let alone at home - especially on the days that she had to walk past the cemetery where he was buried on the way back. The four walls of every room felt claustrophobic rather than open now, closed off from the vibrance that had been there once upon a time when this was a shared place. He had touched every corner of this place, every nook and every cranny, and part of Sevyrn was left wanting to run away from it, move somewhere new. There was no way that she could leave behind the only home that she had ever known, though. She'd barely been nineteen when she first came to own this place, bought with her first hard-earned credits of adulthood. It wasn't the house's fault that she had felt love here.
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Post by Sevyrn on Aug 30, 2020 0:11:27 GMT -6
Walking through the front door no longer left her excited, simply filled with a deep, agonizing dread. She couldn't enter her own bedroom without immediately looking for Ryden's sleeping form beneath her blankets. It was never there - it would never be there again and she needed to somehow get over that. How did anyone ever get over losing a partner? How was someone supposed to just get up and put a smile on their face and go about life without the person they loved most at their side or waiting for the moment that they would be there again? It felt impossible.
As Sevyrn walked through the front door she threw up, hit so hard by the grief that it turned her stomach. She held the vile liquid in her mouth until she could make it to the toilet, and as she collapsed in front of it she bawled while she cleared her mouth.
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Post by Sevyrn on Aug 30, 2020 0:15:46 GMT -6
There was so much that she had done in her life either with Ryden or for hi. - even the things she had always done for herself had been touched by him - sweet moments in the garden while the sunset dipped on the horizon - Ryden and her in the main room, her sitting on the couch with a sketchbook in hand while he painted away. Everything had been so much better with him around to join her. Life had been so much brighter with him at her side.
She brushed her teeth, cleaning the burn of stomach acid from her tongue and the back of her throat. Staring at her own reflection in the mirror she shook her head - weak. That was all she was. A weak mess, torn apart and playing pity party with herself, taking her grief and anger out on people who didn't deserve it in the name of "but what about me?"
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Post by Sevyrn on Aug 30, 2020 0:25:23 GMT -6
Losing him had made her selfish - now, she'd never been the most selfless person in the world, but once she reached the point of trying to push her hard feelings on to other people she had crossed a line that she couldn't come back from. It was terrible - it made her a terrible person, the kind that never deserved to know good, pure love in the first place. He would have been so disappointed in her if he had been here to see what she was acting like now. She didn't deserve Ryden, didn't deserve any of the people she had tried to claim were her friends. She didn't deserve the love of the animals she cared for, or even the home that she lived in.
She made her way to her room, and as she climbed in to bed she pulled her pillow to her face and screamed. There was no better time for a mental break than at home...
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Post by Sevyrn on Aug 30, 2020 0:53:30 GMT -6
She fell asleep like that - hard and exhausted with tears dried to her face and her pillow. It was a rough night, like every one before it had been in the last few weeks. The sheer exhaustion of the night before was still hurting her - leaving her muscles and bones aching, eyes tired - when she woke up the next morning, and yet she would be expected to get up and go about her life, act like nothing was even wrong. Sevyrn was young - the only person to ever go and die on her before had been her father, and she'd been a mess after that. Was it obvious to everyone around her, or was her fake cheery smile enough to mask the fact that she was losing her mind?
But she woke up, she changed her clothes, and she walked down to the kennel to grab Kika for some more training - like it was just another day.
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Post by Sevyrn on Sept 21, 2020 14:01:26 GMT -6
"Get your head out of your ass, Sev. He wouldn't want to see you hurting like this and you know it." How long had it been - a month? A month and a half? Long enough that Quinn's words came out as nothing more than harsh to her, as much as Sevyrn had said the same thing to herself over and over again. The woman was right, by all standards - she'd been hard on herself for something that wasn't her fault, and in turn made it other peoples' problems to the point where, instead of just apologizing to her friends, she'd chosen to push them all away. Sevyrn would call it a miracle that Quinn had even shown up, but was it really? She'd give Sev the chance to have her little pity party, but eventually it was time for some tough love and slap on the face. There was no right way to grieve, but there reached a point where you just had to remember that life keeps going on.
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Post by Sevyrn on Sept 21, 2020 14:33:29 GMT -6
They sat on opposite sides of her kitchen table, Sevyrn's legs crossed on the chair while the other woman shook her head in her hand. " I hate seeing you hurt, Sev. Pushing me away like this, it isn't like you. Let's go out for a bit. You, me, away from town. Spend a couple days in the woods - it would be fun."
"Quinn, I don't know anything about being out in the woods." The younger woman tried to argue, shaking her head and not even giving the idea a passing thought - there was no point. Why would she do that? (She was forgetting that just a couple weeks ago she'd been staring up at a meteor shower intrigued by the idea of spending some time out in the woods.)
"Then you'll learn. I'm not asking, Sev." Her refusal was cut short, taken away by one of the few people that Sevyrn would let boss her around. "We're going to go out for the weekend, reset. Then you're going to come back and start pushing forward again. Even if it's just with me."
"... Okay, mom," she mumbled under her breath.
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Post by Sevyrn on Sept 21, 2020 14:47:06 GMT -6
Quinn took the lead on packing up some of Sevyrn's stuff as the owner of the house sulked in her chair, struggling to accept that this was actually happening. Quinn had been a friend for life, though - even after she had left the city behind to travel for a few years, the pair had still been thick as thieves the moment that Quinn finally came back and showed up at her doorstep.
It was, realistically, unsurprising that the red-haired woman wouldn't let something like Sevyrn losing her fiance get in the way of their decade-and-a-half friendship. There was no one more likely to be here dragging her back in to the world, and no more appropriate person for it. There was no one in the world that Sevyrn would rather break down to than the woman who had been there the last time that she'd spiralled back when her father had died.
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Post by Sevyrn on Sept 21, 2020 14:53:10 GMT -6
"Alright, take your bag. You don't have much that's going to be useful, but you have what you'll need. We can get the rest of the stuff from my place, ride some of my equillion down." Quinn... seemed to have this all planned out already - she must have known ahead of time that she was going to be taking Sev out for a breather. The woman was reluctant to take her own backpack from the other woman and yet at the same time grateful. Thank you, she wanted to say but didn't. Thank you for being here. For showing up. For staying in my life.
The walk to Quinn's little home was dead silent, yet somehow not awkward. At least not any more awkward than Sevyrn's shame brought to her. Somehow the sight of Quinn's beaten up little house was like home to her as much as her own place.
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Post by Sevyrn on Sept 21, 2020 15:08:07 GMT -6
"What do you need?" Sevyrn asked, finally speaking up for the first time since they'd closed her door behind them. The pair walked in tandem through the front door and Sevyrn dropped her bag in a corner by the door, wandering deeper in to halls that she'd walked a thousand times before. She knew where each room, each closet, probably each trinket was within these walls.
"I'll go grab my camping pack - just grab some food from the kitchen Sev," Quinn instructed. Sevyrn was likely right - there was the chance that Quinn just always had a to-go bag ready, it was just like her, but she... That woman knew exactly that she planned to pick Sev up by the seat of her pants and tear her away from society before she'd even started the walk over.
What kind of food would they even want? This would be the first time since she was a child that she left the city.
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Post by Sevyrn on Sept 22, 2020 18:52:20 GMT -6
"Alright - alright. Damn Sev, I didn't realize you'd be that useless. I'll get the food together." Quinn's sense of humor left something to be desired at times - even Sevyrn was put off by it here and there, and they'd been friends since they were children. As much as she knew that her friend meant well, she had already felt pretty useless just staring around the kitchen with not a clue in the world what to pack. Some utensils? A frying pan?
Quinn was an expert with this stuff - she was in her element out in the woods, happier there than stuck within the city's boundaries. She packed quicker than Sevyrn ever could have, and eventually handed off a filled bag towards Sevyrn.
"You want to grab some equillion, or would you rather hike it?" Sevyrn had never hiked before in her life... maybe some exercise would do her some good.
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Post by Sevyrn on Sept 22, 2020 18:58:15 GMT -6
"What would you rather do?" Sevyrn posed the question back to the Quinn, who would have a better idea on what they should do. It would be easier to just go with the equillion but they would be extra mouths that they had to pack for so Quinn might see that as a downfall. Sevyrn also wasn't the most rough and tough girl out there, so that was a downfall of choosing to walk the way there.
"I'd rather walk - have a really nice spot off the trails that the equillion would have a hard time getting to." Sevyrn wasn't going to argue, and was about to open her mouth to agree when Quinn spoke up again. "If you'd rather stay closer to the trails then I'd get it - probably better for a beginner anyways, and I know that you have never been out there."
"I'd like to see your spot, Quinn."
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Post by Sevyrn on Sept 22, 2020 19:02:09 GMT -6
Quinn's face beamed - it seemed that as much as she was okay with staying on the trails, which she really was, she wanted her location more. Sevyrn liked the idea too, as much as she knew thst the journey there and back might be harder.
"You'll love it," the red haired woman assured, grabbing her bag back from Sev. It seemed that she had handed it off in order to pack up what they would need to take Quinn's mares on the journey. "Big clearing on the lake side, plenty of room to swim and fish and set up camp. I know you don't fish, but it's pretty peaceful out on the lake if you want to try."
"I started, actually."
"Oh. What struck that change?" Quinn was curious as she asked, and surprised as well. Sev was a city girl - the closest thing go going natural she had done was tend a garden.
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Post by Sevyrn on Sept 22, 2020 19:06:09 GMT -6
Sevyrn didn't know how to answer that question without acknowledging the obvious - she had started fishing solely because that had been one of Ryden's main hobbies out side of painting, and she had started in hopes of holding on to that piece of him. Quinn knew that he had been a fisher, though - the three of them had gone out before, him and her at the water's edge while Sev sat peacefully in the shade under a tree, pencil and sketchbook in hand.
Her hesitancy in replying clued Quinn in, and the woman just gave her a solemn nod before rubbing Sev's shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. "It's good to hold on to the good things of people you've lost, as long as you don't think that if you hold on hard enough you will bring them back."
"A girl can dream, right?" Sevyrn cracked back, letting out a troubled laugh.
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Post by Sevyrn on Sept 22, 2020 19:11:01 GMT -6
"Yeah, a girl can dream," Quinn returned. "But that's all it is... dreams." Yeah, that was a harsh reality that Sevyrn had to deal with every day.
"Hey - let's get a move on babes. We can stop back at your place and pick up your fishing gear if you want, it's on the way out. If I'd known that you were a first class fishing girl nowadays I would have said to grab it before we left." With that Quinn moved towards the door and Sevyrn trailed behind, ready to head on out. Maybe this journey was going to be as good for her as Quinn was trying to claim it would be.
The least she could do was try to enjoy it - as blunt as Quinn could be sometimes, Sevyrn was lucky to have someone like her in her life - someone who was unwilling to leave her life, at that.
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