Burning Bright | Twisted Sinews
It’s been some time since I’ve written. Much has changed and much has stayed the same. Most of the friends I’ve made in the Quicksand have vanished or otherwise made themselves scarce, but the ones that remained reinforced why I find it so hard to trust people here in Eorzea.
Yumari Takeyari was a sweet, innocent waif that I saw so much potential in. She had such brightness and hope, she studied to be a Sharlayan Sage, even threw off the chains that Nimie had bound her with – though I’m not entirely certain that witch is gone, she never seems to be. Then she started spending her time with other people, only ever seeking me out when she needed something to be fought, or needed some problem solved. Why these other people couldn’t be relied upon to help her, I don’t know, but somehow she always managed to find me.I helped her, as I said I always would, but in the times I’ve needed help, Yumari has only been there once. I am forgettable to her otherwise, convenient when all other avenues have been exhausted.
That is why I call her a liar when she prates to me about being “family” or how I’m some kind of “mother figure” to her. Who treats their family this way? Who would treat their mother this way? I have given her no reason to treat me more like a convenient stranger than any kind of friend. Even now, she hops out of bed with one woman, to practically throw herself at the next. Perhaps that’s why I have no regard from her, because I’m not willing to sleep with her. Gods, the thought is revolting, she’s a girl-child – she even admitted as much!
But all of that makes it hard to trust her, hard to believe in her. She doesn’t seem to understand it at all. She thinks all it takes to win back my trust and my friendship is to be a giggly little girl who jumps for joy at the most inane things. It’s not as easy as all that.
She could ask Garret Hjorth who has had a much harder time of it. After he told me of how he’d lied to me for moons, faked who he was, to the point that I felt like I didn’t even know him I decided to break things off with him. I was unbelievably hurt and heartbroken. I spent so much of my life in relationships that were purely physical, I never allowed myself to love any of them, because we all knew that life, duty, or death would separate us at some point. Garret was the first person I allowed myself to openly and unabashedly love. To have him then destroy all the faith and trust I had in him, because he was scared that I would judge him, just tells me how little he trusted me at all.
He could have given up and walked away, but instead he started being honest with people, being more himself instead of the big, dumb himbo he would always put on as a facade, because he thought that made people feel better. He started paying attention to the things I like and enjoy, looking for ways to support me, like finding the recipe for the pork rice bowl that Oxomoco likes in Kugane. Or finding me books on myths and legends from Hingashi and Doma. It shows me that he does pay attention. And he’s finally listening to me, heeding advice I gave him moons ago. He says that he credits all of his new changes to me. It just stings a little that he had to lose me in order to listen to me. I think, now, he’s trying to show that he can do both, he can listen to me and have me in his life. I just don’t want to be hurt again…
And then there’s Gohin Elwood, the entirely-too-happy hhetsarro that I oftentimes spend time with venting about the other two. He doesn’t really know them, so he’s a safe place to vent that won’t get back to them. I can talk about how monumentally stupid they both are and how they seem to get along just fine without me. Gohin says I deserve better and I probably do, but pickings at the Quicksand are woefully slim and I’m not sure where else to meet or find decent people. Still, Gohin is easy to be around because he’s not roped into all this melodrama, so we can laugh, have fun, go out for tacos late at night, and just exist and there’s something nice to be found in that.
Of course, that’s not to say that I don’t also have Oxomoco Canek and Briar Balboa. Oxomoco pretty much gets an instant playback of any given evening if she cares to listen to it. It annoys her, of course, that all these “friends” of mine don’t really act like friends. She thinks I deserve better, too. That I shouldn’t be going to Yumari and Garret, they should be coming to me. But that is Oxomoco. She’s protective of me, even as my little sister, she only wants to see me happy.
And the only thing that’s well and truly been a delight lately has been our trip to the moon. I don’t want to write too much of it here, because I don’t have the words, but it was an unparalleled trip that reminded me just how much I love my sister, even if it also reminded me just how small I am in the vastness of the world. Even the universe. It made me love the stars all the more, though, and though I have no aptitude for magic, I might take a trip out to the First Dicasterial Observatorium of Aetherial and Astrological Phenomena – Vidraal’s Fangs, that’s such a mouthful! But I might go there and see what I can learn anyway. It would make for a nice diversion
This is more than enough for now. I’m going to make Oxomoco some mole pibil, as promised.
