wounded.

"We need to talk.” Septimika says suddenly, breaking the silence of the night like thunder breaks before the storm. It’s not the first time Septimika has said these words, but it’s the first time they have said it and it’s felt different. Ru raises her head, changing her concentration from the bow she was cleaning, to her mentor who sits across from her, stoic as a statue. Something in Ru shifts, something in her turns.

 “What do you mean?” She answers, consciously trying to stop her hands from fiddling with the stray, loose strands of fabric that have come undone on the sash around her waist. “I will be leaving for the Cinderlands tomorrow.” Septimika says, slow as ever and whatever has been shifting in Ru still turns, it drops. She figures it must be what remains of her heart, dropping from the pit of her stomach down to her ankles. But she refuses to let it be seen so she continues to clean - shrugging at these words and at her own emotions. “Already? Are we going to manage to avoid Kaer Maga this time or are we going to help some lost vagabonds like the last time?” She sneers, the tone in her voice light when she raises her head to catch Septimika’s eye. 

Septimika is not smiling, not that they ever do but they are standing now. Tall and statuesque - a mountain that cannot be moved and Ru freezes. “Just me.” Septimika answers, bringing their hands together. Ru stands up almost immediately, barely meeting his height, the hair on the back of her neck bristling. “What do you mean - just you?” Ru snaps, her tone coming out more pathetic than she wanted, more hurt than she would care to admit. 

Septimika continues. “I’ve done all that I can for you, Rumydias - and I am needed elsewhere. I am needed back home.” 

Something in Ru crackles, it snaps. Perhaps it is the word need, because it implies she needs someone, that she needs Septimika which she knows at her core is the truth. Perhaps because she realizes what this is, long after Septimika has spoken. Another goodbye, another person leaving. She explodes, more so in sound than words - watching as whatever emotion Septimika shows teeters on the edge from stoicism to something else. They raise a hand. 

“Stop,” They interrupt. “I want you to let me help. That’s all I want. It’s all I have ever wanted from you, but you.... You live in sorrow. That’s all you let yourself know. I try and I try to show you how to find even small happiness, but you pick your sorrow every time.” 

Something in Ru swells. “You think I choose to be miserable? That I wouldn’t change this if I had a chance?” She screams this - of course she does. Septimika is quiet, so she must be loud. They are patient, so she must be impatient. Septimika is good and so she must be their opposite. 

Septimika does not rise to her challenge, they never do. Instead, the dragonborn merely sighs and steps back away from the fire, casting their gaze into the woods. “When a hunter comes home on a winter night, he knows the next morning he will have to go back outside. He knows it will be just as cold and bitter as it is right now, and it will be hard to leave his home with its fire, and it will be even harder to adjust his heart to the winter again. He thinks it’s easier to stay in the bitterness, so he never has to deal with coming back outside again,” Ru has heard this story a thousand times before, but this time - she feels the cold of the hunter’s winter cut through her skin right to the bone. They turn to look at Ru, showing perhaps the first emotion Ru has recognized on their normally stone face. It is sorrow. 

Septimika continues, “- but the cold will kill him. It will chill his blood, it will hollow out his heart.” Septimika states, turning completely to face the distraught teen - cupping Ru’s face in their hands, mindful of her bruises on her cheek. “You have had no home in the winter of your life. Now you think if you come inside, the pain of leaving will never match the comfort of a home. But isn’t the pain of being in the winter forever so much worse?” Ru pauses, heart faltering at the blatant truth and the moment she grasps it, she lets it go. Because to grasp it, means to acknowledge it. To acknowledge the hurt and pain, the heat. And Ru has become too accustomed to the cold - just as Septimika stated. 

“You don’t understand.” She pulls away, punctuating the night with a cry - practically throwing herself out of Septimika’s hands. “I can take everything, anything. I don’t need the sun or the summer. I don’t need anyone and I certainly don’t need you.” Her voice cracks on the last word, and she holds herself closer, crossing her arms over her chest, ducking her head so Septimika doesn’t see the swell of emotions crossing her face, the tears that are threatening to roll. Ru looks down to her fists - clenched so hard in her rage that her nails have cut into the very palm of her skin, and her red-hot raging blood is trickling through the absence in between her fingers and onto the forest floor. Septimika shifts - she can see them and she is worried for a moment they really will leave without comforting her. Ru feels the silence settle around them like fog, heavy and thick, uncomfortable until she can no longer stand it, stand the truth and she leaves before she can hear their answer, before she can allow herself to be comforted. 

There is no summer coming for her, there is no warmth - it is just Ru in the wild, with ice for veins and a hollowed out heart.