Work Text:
Yara knows she shouldn’t feel betrayed but she still feels like it anyway. She sighs as she stands up and calls out for Tyril and asks him if they could walk together.
He smiles, and she feels especially guilty: he says “of course” and it shows how much he doesn’t see it as a bad thing at all. In fact, Tyril really does seem to appreciate her company.
Yara smiles tightly back. It’s hard to swallow the guilt, the conflict, and the eagerness to make everything better as if there weren’t a problem in the world, and Tyril could be at peace as much as she (kind) was when Mal met her. She had been looking out for food on the same day, but at least Yara and Kade made do (almost) every time. At least, they had each other - unconditionally.
Not anymore, not like before. But it wasn’t Kade’s choice.
She walks in silence with Tyril. The silence feels thick to her, but not with tension but by their thoughts, each to their own. Bittersweet like the cool, soft chill filling the clear.
When Tyril sits down and he talks about the stars, Yara is caught out of guard and the previous thoughts almost disappear from her conscious mind.
They talk about the past, too, though, she feels the bittersweet of it all again: the past with Kade, the hunger, the loneliness before she met Kade; the happiness to have someone worth it for every single situation, the bad and the good. The faint idea that Undermount was a foreign place that should feel like home.
Kaya, Tyril’s best friend, yet again. Yara can say that she’s glad that Tyril had someone whom he could trust on, who he could talk to back on the day. Someone that was like Kade was to her, her safe harbor, her protector, the person she was thankful the most for.
It still stings, though. Yara knows she’s wrong, her heart is. She shouldn’t feel as much as - and how - she does about the whole issue when she’s also infatuated with Mal and maybe Imtura, but she has believed his words, in the great intensity they talked about and Yara doesn’t believe Tyril was lying but maybe he was overdoing himself - perhaps it was her who was listening too much from his words when Tyril had been certainly deprived of the feelings of real safety and trust.
It’s clear that someone else is still in the picture, and she has almost the same characteristics that Yara has. It feels out of place. It feels like something was wrong put there.
“What are you thinking of?” She looks back at him as he calls her attention with the sudden question.
His eyes, as intense as they always are, are staring back at Yara’s and she feels guilt pressing like poison, like something that tastes bad on the tongue, acid into the veins.
They stare at each other.
Yara’s jaw works slightly, her throat bobs a little as she swallows. She lowers her gaze and she can see him frowning, slightly.
“Is there something wrong, Yara?”
Yara swallows again. There is, but maybe it isn’t his fault. Maybe it isn’t anybody’s fault. Feelings are tricky. She knows she isn’t on a spot to demand anything from him, although…Although Yara feels like Tyril’s words sometimes make her feel far too special, in a way she feels compelled to demand anyway. Are they real? Those feelings? Do they really match whatever they feel?
With the back of a crooked finger, he raises her chin, gently.
“Tell me,” he says, not demanding but sounding authoritative all the same. He looks kind of hurt and Yara didn’t want to push it but she clearly cannot hide, not from herself, not from him.
“Are you sure….are you sure you like me?” Yara asks, in a small voice.
He frowns:
“What?”
She shakes her head, desperately, trying to hide her eyes.
“Nothing.”
He raises her chin again, making their eyes meet. His stare is a bit more hard but resolute.
“I heard you. I just cannot understand why could you think otherwise.”
She looks asides.
“Kaya,” she explains and he recoils a little, “she is special to you.”
“Cour-”
“Your eyes shine talking about her,” she says, raising her eyes, resolution filling her to stand her ground, “Whatever you may call it, you still feel deeply in love with her.”
Tyril’s jaw works as he stiffens, he looks away. There, there is something there. Some truth in what she has told him. Yara doesn’t know what, how much or if any of that matters, but she needs to know that whatever it is, it doesn’t make Yara and what she has with Tyril nothing in comparison or just a step between the start and the end of their path.
He sighs.
“I do have feelings for her,” he says, still staring at nothing, at the sky, “but it isn’t the same. I don’t even know what would I feel if I saw her again.”
Yara nods, she feels relieved despite the subject. She feels relieved that she talked about it at all and that Tyril was honest about it.
“Whatever I feel for her, though,” he says, his gaze coming to Yara’s, his thumb brushing slightly the other side of Yara’s face, “I still like you, I still desire your company like I do water or magic.” He smiles sadly.
Yara blushes but she smiles.
“I’m happy that you enjoy having me around,” she smirks.
He chuckles.
“You may be a little like her,” he says, biting his lower lip, “but just ‘cause you are good, like she was. And incredibly relaxing to be with.”
They smile at each other.
“We should get back,” Yara says at last, after a while.
“Yeah, in a minute,” he says and she ends up with her head on his lap. He talks to her about the stars and she listens, happy to be there.