juniper tart

juniper is a soft, gentle soul inside and out, who has retreated into herself as a result of a trauma she experienced years ago. rather than growing cold and closing her heart in response, she melted far into a deep degree of acceptance- perhaps too deep. juniper lives peacefully and kindly, spending most of her time at home tending to her plants. she struggles with leaving the house and with being afraid of others even when she is trying to believe in their goodness. she doesn't have many friends, but her heart is open to the ones she does have, despite that remaining thread of constant, underlying fear. if you were to ask her sibling yarrow, they would say that she should let herself be angrier- but for her, she only wants to move on and feels that dwelling on anger over the past will only make her less functional than she already is.

it's hard to move on, however, when yarrow's personality was so drastically affected by seeing what she went through. juniper blames herself for yarrow ending up the way they are because she couldn't hide the effects of what was happening to her. yarrow would do anything to protect juniper, but their overprotective and distrustful nature is, to her, a constant reminder of her own failures and helplessness. yarrow may not think she understands, but she knows deeply that yarrow becoming manipulative, cynical, and full of rage is coming from a fear of the world because she's felt it even deeper than they have. She wouldn't admit it to anyone because of an internalized need to be a 'pretty victim', but she can't deny to herself that yarrow's enactment of the hatred she can't admit to is somewhat cathartic. Deep down, though, she harbours a little bit of resentment that yarrow's shaped their life over a trauma that is hers. overall, she loves yarrow dearly, and gently tries to nudge them towards letting go when she can... which only tends to make yarrow feel more stubborn about being hateful because juniper herself won't be.