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"I don't think I was ever smart, I was just..." Desperate; comes the first word to mind. Desperate to please, desperate to prove a sense of worth. Desperate to ensure that everybody will be satisfied minus one. Hearing the echos of cheer, Mavuika wonders if this is really what she wanted.
She clicks her tongue, toying with tips of her hair, not aflame currently. The chill in the air, despite the sun shining down directly onto her, felt as though it seeped deep into her bones. She taps the tip of her heel against the old path, letting the noise fill the silence.
"I don't know what I was," she lies, imagining Hine, height still beneath Mavuika's shoulder, as she speaks with way more maturity than a child should have. She doesn't remember if Hine was like that alive. "You've felt the pain of everything, and everyone, never stumbling in the process..."
She summons her claymore, resisting the urge to trace the blade with her fingertips. Instead, she just trails the edges with her eyes, fighting the little, unnoticeable twitches in her hand. "There's two types of adrenaline," she hears herself making no sense, jumping from thought to thought, but she doesn't bother to correct. "Or well, two ways to feel it. Maybe three... maybe more."
The metal of the sword clings against the stone as the very tip scrapes it. Mavuika let's out a humorless, breathy laugh. "Never thought I'd live to see the day where I could tell the difference so effortlessly. Did you? You must have, with the way everything panned out."
She looks over at Capitano, staring so intently at the way his chest rises and falls. Minuscule movements across his body the only indication that he was there, somewhere. Mavuika can still pinpoint the exact moment The Captain relaxed, the exact moment Ronova agreed (As loosely as that word can be used), the exact moment when she could see The Captain lower his shoulders, breathe a sigh of relief, or whatever other mix of complex emotions she wasn't quick enough to catch. Mavuika sees it all now, in his frozen state.
She sees the peace enveloping the mortal body that she was sure was left behind. No longer refuge, no longer owned, no longer human; but still alive. Still a breathing, moving corpse. Still a body without a host... still refuge, a different kind.
Mavuika kneels before him, the uneven steps digging into her knees. She casts her weapon aside (No more violence, no more bloodshed. He doesn't deserve that), looking up at the face covering mask. It's been a while since she's seen his face, and it's been a while since melancholy turned physical.
She toys with her fingernails, suddenly struggling to catch her breath. She laughs again, weak and short. "I'm so used to war that I... struggle to comprehend the peace and calm. I've never even lived in an era of peace, I'm not sure if you did." She looks up towards him, mulling over her words. "It's everything the last 500 years of Natlanese people have wished for, everything each and every hero of Natlan yearned for, the efforts of all Pyro Archons combined, everything that I wanted... every little thing led to this, to this ideal outcome."
"Tell me, why do I feel grief?"
Mavuika presses her forehead against the cool floor, her peripherals catching the gorgeous hue of black and blue. She wills her hands to stop trembling, but they refuse to listen. She picks at her nails more aggressively, careful not to draw blood. (No more, not to him. I promise.)
Adrenaline spikes in her blood, she can tell by the way her muscles tense, her brain yells out, and how she can't see anything in front of her except for a narrow line of sight, directed at a particular misaligned stone plate. The bad one. The bad adrenaline, the one that can't tell between safety and danger.
Or maybe it was Mavuika that couldn't tell the difference? Or maybe it was the unfamiliarity of safety which led to it being more threatening than immediate, abyss-level danger? Maybe it was the feeling of fire (The bad kind. She found out fire in her veins can feel bad too) seeming to want to burst from her skin that made her feel like she was on the edge of tears?
She tries to shift her focus to her discarded weapon, blurry and far, and not close enough. She's not in direct reach, and she doesn't have the energy to grab for it. The good adrenaline, the spike of energy and excitement, the rush of wind past her hair, flames at her back, and a familiar weight in her arms... she's been experiencing it less and less recently.
"You wanted this, I know," she whispers, pleading with her vocal cords to keep it together. "But I find it hard to feel anything other than pure misery, resentment and mourning for you." She gritts her teeth, thinking back on commanding Capitano's soldiers, the thrill of the fights against him.
A worthy opponent. The excitement of potentially losing the fight. She misses it now, she misses him.
"Damn you. Self-sacrificing bastard," she mutters, not finding the strength to give it the proper sharpness that she usually would have. "This wasn't how it was supposed to go..."
She licks at her lips, her tongue catching on her canines. She remembers how, despite the rot, despite the surface-level gruffness of the man, he laughed. Laughed with his chest at the cheer in Mavuika's eyes when she caught him off guard, trapping his dominant hand before he could block her attack, and sneaking a kiss through the mask.
She exhales harshly, almost feeling her lungs spasm. Her vision spun and darkened, lightheadedness hitting her despite her head being on the ground. She moves one hand to clutch at her chest, soft skin catching on the edges of her sharp zipper.
Another laugh escapes her, cut off by a choked sob. Her nails dig into her chest, just below her collarbones, and she counts in her head as she wrestles control of her airways. Not now, not in front of him.
Harsh, ragged sounds come out of her mouth, and frustration builds in her before she can think to stop it. "Selfish!" She yells out, loud like it's the truth. "Selfish! It should have been me! Me!" She grinds her teeth against each other, jaw clenched. "You were supposed to live in this peaceful paradise, you! You! Not..."
It wasn't meant to be like this, everything around her yells, ricocheting off her skull and reverberating in her brain. She wants to scream at him, wants to yell and beg for him to explain his reasoning, to explain what the fuck he was even thinking, explain why, why why why why why-
Mavuika stops herself, a cough intercepting her. She feels herself deflate. Anger turned to numbness. "It was meant to be us."
A wish to ridicule herself comes, but she brushes it aside. Uses Capitano's own words to try and chase away the thoughts. "Sorry," she tells him, "it's been a rough few days." She tries to pry away her hand from her chest, with great difficultly.
"I think I'll work on another painting, what do you think? Of us? Would you like to be immortalised with me by your side?" A tears slips down her chin, falling on the floor below. "Would you?" She whispers like a prayer.
As she pulls her hand away from her chest, a drop of blood splatters right in front of Capitano. She chokes on her breath, staring at the state of it. She doesn't stop the tears that flow. In his name. "I'm sorry."
The blood shapes like half a heart.