Hurt had never come to mind when she thought of herself.
It didn't, until tonight at least. She was now. She couldn't breathe. Not as she stormed through the snow, nearly running as she hugged herself and stomped her way through the snow. It hurt, physically. Everything hurt. She wasn't supposed to hurt. She wanted to scream, and run, and cry and...hurt. She wanted to hurt other people, mostly. She knew she did, so she kept moving. Kept running. She just had to run.
Fen'nan thought if she stopped for just one moment it would all hit and she couldn't let that happen. Her red hair whipped behind her as she picked up her pace and broke into a sprint across the darkened, snow covered streets of Regalia. Away from the Nook. Away from everything. Her feet barley sank into the crunchy snow as the lithe Altalar flew across it like a swift shadow within the night. She wasn't drunk anymore. She was sober. Completely sober and with now thought and if she kept going she knew she could stop herself from feeling it.
You're better then this. You do not cry. You do not cry. Not for anyone. Not over this. You don't feel. You're stronger then this.
She kept repeating the words as the wind kissed her face painfully, a sharp bitter chill to it. She waited for her lungs to burn, burn so much she couldn't feel her heart. Or the ache in her chest. The hot tears that edged on her eyes. She whipped around a corner and found herself at a dead end. She stopped.
Her breaths fell rapid and quick and she realized she'd stopped indeed, and when she did it all came in. She turned in a circle, scanning the utterly silent, cold and empty streets of Regalia. It hit her like a sharp blow to the stomach, and she in-took a shuddering breath, giving a strangled noise as she ran her hands roughly over her scalp. No, no, no. She wasn't. But she couldn't think. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to turn to.
She was alone.
Fen'nan reached up and quickly wiped the stray tear that rolled down her pinked cheek as if someone were looking. She let out a slow breath as she tried to shove it all down. Pain, hurt, betrayal, she warped it into rage. It was so familiar. This anger. It consumed her. It licked at her skin, stifled her thoughts. It protected. It destroyed. She needed it. The girl let the rage take over, so she could keep going as she turned and darted back the way she came, sprinting for home. Just run. If she could run forever she would.
Her rage burned hotter then the pain. Hotter then the burning in her lungs. She did not love. She did not care. She was more than that. She was more then this. It was this she told herself, her eyes narrowed in determination as she pushed herself harder and harder. She was hotter then flame. Untouchable. Burning. Dangerous. But it was consuming her. An addictive feeling of protection she couldn't drop and wouldn't want to, especially now so she kept running. And running. Running.
She practically flew into her home, slamming the door wide open before slamming it behind her, huffing and gasping for air, she slumped back against her door. Her breaths the only sound in the home. It wasn't surprising. Milo had someone. He'd be out for awhile. Love and all that.
Fen'nan tried to ignore the petty, angry bitterness that came with this thought as she looked around the dim, darkened house. Anger faded slowly, with nowhere to run. Her steel-toed boots dragged across the floor, as much as she tried to stop it, before she dragged herself up the stairs, her hands working behind her crimson locks as she wrapped it in a lazy, loose bun that left its stray tendrils to dangle out, pale, freckled features glancing around the empty bedroom. Her previous words echoed in her head and she found herself wincing.
"Set foot in my house again and I will /kill/ you."
She was beginning to feel the rising emotion spread from her aching chest, so she swallowed and shoved it down as she quietly stepped over to her empty desk, glancing to the unlit candle on the corner of the desk and glumly wondering why she should light it at all before she opened her drawer and grabbed a match, swiftly lighting the candle quietly before grabbing the half empty rum bottle from the very same drawer. Her nightly routine, almost. It always changed. Sometimes it was so quiet it hurt.
She quietly closed the drawer and before she jumped a little looked over at the sound of an abrupt squawk, peering at the caged raven that looked back at her with its inquisitive, beady black eyes that now shine slightly from the candlelight on the far side of the desk, reflecting and flickering in its boring black state. Fen'nan sneered at it.
"What?"
She snapped. As if it could somehow respond. She wished it would. Fen wished someone would. But she'd done what she wanted. She'd shoved people away...like she had too. And she did, really, it was for their own good...no matter how hurtful she had to be to get there. Words echoed silently in her guilty torment.
"But I'm not changing because someone who got attachments asked me to!"
But she didn't push everyone. Sometimes they pushed back. Things she couldn't have foreseen or predicted. The raven watched her stony expression shift, fall and then re-harden. A silent question begged in its eyes. 'Are you okay?' She could almost hear it.
Fen'nan stared at it as if it had actually asked. Maybe because she was lonely. Or nobody was around. Or she was hurt and lonely. Or all of it. But she responded simply. "No. No, I'm not okay."
And so the redhead moved around the desk, stepping outside into the freezing air as she leaned over the balcony railing, her arms folding across themselves as she upturned her solemn gaze to the stars. The weeks events played out sourly in her head. Her drunken night tonight, the night before, horrible. Fen'nan raised the bottle to her lips and took a long drunk from it, swallowing down the harsh liquid. She clenched her jaw as she glanced to her hand.
She can still remember hitting with it. The shove. The sickening crack. It made her stomach churn slightly. Anger kissed her neck. She shouldn't have cared. She never should have cared. Caring gets you killed. Other people hurt. It hurt her, and she couldn't afford to feel like this. She even felt guilty in some ways. Fen'nan knew she opened too much. She opened too much and it got her hurt. This weakness. It ate her. She despised it.
She swallowed in the pain. Breathed it in, slowly. Even as her breath shuddered, even as she felt the water in her eyes. The hand that was not holding a bottle slowly moved to clutch at her stomach as she a pained noise, her face contorting as if pained. Ache. It was like a knife in her stomach, but it had carved out her insides rather then plunging it in. And she was mad. She was so mad, so, so mad she'd let herself feel so much. Too much, considering it all. Sad because she didn't feel more. Sad because she wanted to, and she knew deep down couldn't afford to.
Regalia knew her well. She was the trouble-maker. The rebel. The stupidly defiant. The cold-hearted bitch. The mean. The angry. They hated her. She'd made sure of it.
Fen'nan couldn't stop the few tears that leaked from her eyes, emitting a shuddering gasp. There was a secret. A secret she had not told a soul. She did feel, she did care. Most of all she missed it. She missed friends. She missed laughing. She missed the genuine smiles. She missed being honest. She missed love as much as she feared it. She missed living.
But she could not have it. Because it was weakness.
And it killed her. It was a slow death, painful, much like this heartbreak...but she was stronger then this. She knew. Fen'nan knew, she did not succumb to matters of the heart. She straightened up, letting her hand fall from her stomach. The Altalar blinked away her tears. She was stronger then all of this. The small elf I took a shuddering breath, letting in the pain and shoving it down. Deep down. Where it could rot and stew with the rest. Hidden and safe. The young woman took a swig of the bottle.
"No, I'm not okay." Fen'nan said aloud, quietly, as she faced the stars, her pained blue-green gaze, framed by its dark wet lashes, lifting to admire the speckles of light that broke across the black skies, her tone was hollowed and bitter, empty almost. But it carried its hidden strength, its fire, that underlying rage that was always just beneath the surface. "But I will be."
