Prompt Shop Bop

"Into the Unknown" - Maji

from Frozen 2

"I can hear you but I won't"

Maji can hear the water demon. It hasn't properly left her alone since she escaped its hold on her, and even when its silent, Maji can feel its presence, waiting for the chance to lure her back. Though she can hear it, she refuses to acknowledge it, refusing to admit that she can hear it any longer. If she ignores it for long enough, surely it will stop. Eventually, shouldn't the spirit give up? Though the possibility seems less and less likely every day as it still refuses to stop lurking in her mind, even when it's silent, Maji has to believe that eventually it will give up and release her hold on her. If it doesn't, she really doesn't know what she'll do, because eventually, it will erode her walls enough to lull her into that sense of false security all over again. She can't allow that to happen again; she won't. She won't fall for its lies again, so even if she hears it, she will say she does not. She will ignore it and swear that it is gone till those words become the truth, because that is all she can do to fight against its attempts to enrapture her the way it once did.

"Some look for trouble while others don't"

When she was younger, and more naive, it wouldn't be too far fetched to say that Maji was a trouble seeker. Maybe she wasn't looking to get herself into trouble, but she was certainly not doing anything to stop herself from getting into it. It was how she got possessed in the first place; she got lured in by a mysterious creature that she did not feel incredibly safe around and yet chose to interact with anyways, and when they were close enough, it took advantage of her lack of attention to protecting herself and struck. She thought it was her friend, perhaps even more than a friend, despite knowing all the stories that warned her about the danger that a water demon presented, and so was caught completely off guard when it possessed her. Even before her encounter with the water spirit, Maji was never all that cautious. The lioness wanted to explore the world and experience everything it had to offer. In the process, she put herself in a lot of danger. Her parents hadn't even wanted her to leave their home in the first place, but Maji had been determined, setting off on her own and never (okay, barely) looking back. She wanted to see everything for herself, and prove herself in a large, cold, unforgiving world that she didn't seem to see or understand the harshness of. Somewhere inside her, she seemed to have some fundamental belief (conscious or not) that because she had good intentions, she was safe; that everything else around her would also have good intentions. Scraps with rogue lions and other animals quickly disillusioned her to this idea, and yet, when faced with an actual demon, she failed to even consider how sinister it might be.

"There's a thousand reasons I should go about my day"

Maji is doing better now than she has been in a long time. She has a mate, one that adores her and that she adores. Kusafiri saved her life, and she would not trade him for anything. On top of that, she has a home in the Isle of Roses, one she never expected to find. She'd left her family behind because she didn't want to stay put, and yet now, she finally understood the appeal of having a place to call home that you could return to at the end of the day. And in that home, Maji has actually managed to make friends with her pridemates, developing bonds that she never would have imagined having when she was younger and trying to traverse the world. She'd been hesitant when she first returned with Kusafiri to the Isle, unsure what to make of this strange group he had brought her back to. She didn't fit in; she was unconventional, to say the least, and had changed after her experience with the water demon. It didn't help that, with the loss of her memories, she didn't pick up on every social norm right away. Sometimes, she still did things off the beaten path; she knew that many of those who knew of Hadithi's heritage did not approve of her decision there, for example, but she did not care. It did not affect her relationships with them, at least not too badly, because had she lost them, she would have been devastated. The only bad part of her life was discovering Hadithi's existence, and as horrible as it would sound to anyone else id she told them this line of reasoning, even that had been handled by her disappearance. It saddened her, yes, because she felt some attachment to the cub, but no more than any other pridemate would feel for a cub that was a part of their group. However, it did make Maji's life easier. In short, the lioness is happy, far happier than she ever was before or during the water demon's possession.

"And ignore your whispers which I wish would go away"

With all of those good things currently present in her life, it makes sense that Maji would not currently see much reason to follow the water demon's voice, trying to coax her back to it. It had used and manipulated her, but now she had a stability, those who cared for her and would help. Though most cannot help fully, not actually knowing about her possession (and fewer still knowing about the lingering voice after its expulsion), Kusafiri at least is a constant, something she can anchor herself to when the voice gets particularly bad. Because despite its presence ebbing away, every now and then it spikes back up, and in those times, it comes back strong. Maji isn't certain that she would be able to block it out without her mate's help, something that frustrates her. Though she loves him, she needs to be able to do this without him. Otherwise, what will she do if he's ever not around? It would be so much easier if it would just go away and leave her be.