Private Finished Crying Isn't Weak

Remi had been swiftly shifting from one form to the other during her time in the forest. Since she entered, she only had one goal in mind: hunt until movement wasn't possible. She stalked her prey, waited to see if they showed a shifter tag or acted sentient, then pounced, taking her sweet time to leave them as a bloody mess. Rinse and repeat for an hour? Two? Time never existed during Remi’s hunts. When she hunted it lasted an eternity, and when she finished she realized it had only been ten minutes. It was wonderful.

Now finished, she was panting, but the adrenaline rush was still there. If she continued longer like this, she knew she would lose herself and wouldn’t be able to stop until she passed out. And she was very close to passing out.

Changing to her peryton form, she trotted to a nearby lake and took a couple of minutes to drink it without a break. Then, she began traveling the forest to find suitable plants and branches to eat. With every bite she took, she could feel her energy coming back to her, though a nap would do her good.

But not now. She was still pissed off at Tai for what he said. What he implied. She just started her path to becoming a psychologist, and already she felt shitty and unappreciated it. But she knew this was how it was in the industry. What made Tai's words hurt was that he was a friend. Someone she trusted not just because of the magic between them, but because of time spent together. And then he went ahead to imply therapy was a weakness. That she was weak.

Remi could feel Tai's presence before he spoke. The Earth told her someone was near, and based on the way he moved, she could identify him immediately. Darting off sounded like a good option, but that would mean she was running away from her problems. Hypocrisy was a terrible way to win an argument, and her pride wouldn't let Tai be right.

So she looked up at Tai, letting the awkward silence linger to torture him a bit, then swallowed the last bites of her branch before changing to her cervitaur form. "Yeah, you did," she responded bluntly. As per usual when her mood was sour, she spoke with a monotone and showed little expression on her face. "but it's too late to change things now. Since you approached me first, I suppose you have something important to say? I'm not ready for small talk."

Remi's eyes stayed focused on her target. It took everything in her to not flare up her feathers and bare her teeth. Back home, if there was an issue between two people, putting their aggression against each other followed by a heart-to-heart talk usually solved it. Ilada always intervened before things went too far.

But Remi had no intention to fight Tai. Or maybe she did, and the magic between them that kept her mostly submissive to him prevented her from doing anything. Somehow that angered her more. Or was that discomfort?

She quietly listened to his words, her body still as a statue. And when he finished, she once again let the silence linger for a bit before speaking. "I can tell you're in a weird state. I can understand that personally. That's why I'm worried about you. That's why I'm trying to help you. But when you brush me off—" Remi sharply cut herself there. Too much emotion.

She took a deep breath in, then a long breath out. "It aggravates me when you're saying you're trying to get better only to ignore the best solutions. It's like you don't want help and..." ... and just like complaining. But that was too mean, wasn't it?

Remi wanted to hit herself. It felt good making Tai hurt like her. To have him groveling at her talons, begging for forgiveness. It gave her power she didn't usually have. She felt wanted. She felt needed.

And those feelings made her nauseous. These were things her therapist needed to hear about. This was a friend, for Illada's sake. Was she so deep in the mindset of her recent hunt that she could even view a friend as prey? An elementalist as prey?

She brushed off his apologies, refusing to use Tai's vulnerability against him. She wouldn't let herself be like the fae that had hurt one of her friends and continued to haunt her.

So Remi chose to do one of the things she enjoyed the most about being an oricenta. With light—or as light as a fleshy rock can be—steps, she approached Tai to embrace him. "Tai, chill, I'm happy you're opening up to me now, and I'm happy we're having our talk in private. I'm here to help you out. That's literally my reason for living. To help out the elements and elementalists. If I was truly fed up with you and the bond between us was broken, I wouldn't be talking to you right now."

I'd probably be trying to rip your throat out, passed through her mind, but this was too good of a moment to ruin with such a violent truth.

For a while, there was no talking. Not out of some petty method of torture for Tai, but because he needed time to collect his thoughts, calm down, and maybe cry. Remi really wanted him to cry, then maybe he would act more rationally. That was her method.

As much as Remi liked peaceful silence, it wasn't usually this awkward. It was one thing to lean against her boyfriend in silence and read a book, or to cuddle with her siblings while they slept. Hugging Tai for so long when he was so broken was a whole other thing that made her feel tenser.

"You can cry, you know? On Ilada, there's nothing wrong with crying. It's there for a reason. It's healthy to let it out."