Stitch by stitch I tear apart
If brokenness is a form of art
I must be a poster child prodigy
Thread by thread I come apart
If brokenness is a work of art
surely this must be my masterpiece
~Neptune - Sleeping At Last~
Aya. Beautiful, green, luscious Aya. After so many run-ins with broken planets with inhospitable conditions and some with less than desirable inhabitants, Aya was a treat. And yet, here she was, drinking away at the Tavataan. All alone, like she always was.
She shook her head of these solitary thoughts. No, she wasn't alone anymore. After Voeld, after Kadara, after everything they'd gone through together, her crew had actually come to respect her to some degree. At times, she actually felt like she'd earned the title of Pathfinder.
As vindicated as she felt to be recognized, it was a big step away from the crumbling, self-loathing woman that was Thea Ryder. No matter her successes, she couldn't shake the feeling of inadequacy.
If one disregarded her title, who would she be? She downed a glass of a strange milky purple substance. She'd be a nobody— just a scared little girl who was too cowardly to stay in her galaxy alone. A mindless idiot who blindly followed an absent father and an unknown organization to a mostly-unexplored galaxy millions and millions of light years away. A sniveling excuse of a Pathfinder riding on the practically-royal coattails of her esteemed father, who sacrificed himself to save her pathetic ass.
Who would she be without her father? Without SAM?
She gestured at Roaan for another drink. She already knew the answer to that question: she'd be fucking dead. As soon as the glass clinked against the surface of the bar, she picked it up and poured it down her throat, disgusted by the bitter burn.
"Never took you for a drinker, Pathfinder," a baritone voice drawled beside her.
She scoffed breathily, throwing back another shot and wincing as it went down. Her eyes glanced over to Evfra in acknowledgment as he took a seat next to her and nodded to Roaan for a drink. Thea tried not to let her disappointment show; though she and Evfra had gotten along better since rescuing the Moshae, she had hoped to drink alone tonight, devoid of small talk. She'd even asked SAM to not disturb her.
"I'm not," she chuckled halfheartedly. "Just thought I'd try it out tonight. New galaxy, new me, right?"
Evfra grunted at her answer, but he said nothing more as Roaan set two glasses down in front of him. He picked up the glasses and threw them back, one after the other. When he set the second glass down, Thea cocked an eyebrow.
"Who are you trying to impress, Evfra?" she smirked.
He rolled his eyes, gesturing for more drinks. "Is it too much to ask for silence?"
She shrugged. "Fine by me, but for the record, you spoke first."
"And what a mistake it was." When Roaan set more glasses in front of her, Evfra frowned. "How much have you had to drink?"
Thea put a finger to her lips, shaking her head. "Shhhhhhhh, remember?" She gulped down one of the glasses.
Evfra made a face, grumbling into his own glass. "Fine by me," he parroted.
They continued to drink in silence, listening to the crisp gusts of wind whirling around them and the rustling of the trees. The Tavataan's natural sunlight came and went, covered by stormy clouds. Before they could adjust to the loss of light, however, they were surrounded by the pattering of raindrops.
"Of course it's raining," Evfra sighed. "It always does."
Thea looked sideways at him— or what she thought could be him. Her vision had gotten a bit blurry. "It always rains on Aya?" Jaal had told her that among other aspects, Aya was known for its bountiful sunlight.
Evfra scoffed. "Only when you're here."
She chuckled, downing another drink. "Sounds right," she slurred slightly. At his raised brow, she explained. "There's a saying with us humans: to have a black cloud hanging over one's head. It generally means that one is depressed or in a bad mood. Only in my case, it's literal." She swirled her drink around, eyes growing unfocused.
Evfra eyed her. "And which one are you, Pathfinder?"
She smirked, glaring into her glass. "I wonder." She downed the shot, her mood souring. Just how much had she had to drink? How was she still standing? She shook her head, making her vision spin. "This… this isn't working. I need so'thing else."
"It's working just fine," Evfra muttered back.
Her head felt heavy, so she let it hang from her shoulders. "Drwack shaid—" She heaved a frustrated sigh, trying to remember how tongues worked. "Drack said drinking was s'posed to de-stress me. But it-it's not working." Her swaying head shot up as an idea bloomed in her mind. She reached over to Evfra to slap his arm. "Hey, let's fi—!"
But in her drunken haze, she misjudged the trajectory of her arm and her hand met air instead as she tipped out of her seat, her full weight tumbling into Evfra and knocking the both of them down to the wet ground. She heard Evfra land with a pained grunt as she fell hard beside him, her head crashing into his chest. She slowly rolled off him and laid flat on the ground.
"Fuck, that hurt!" she screamed— apparently, she was an obnoxiously loud drunk. Her hand came up to massage her bruising hip, wincing as her fingers touched a raw scrape. She let out an exasperated breath, rolling her head to look at Evfra. "Anyways… let's fight."
Evfra glared at her with eyes filled with annoyed rage, and his body shot up to stand, his clothes dripping wet. "Stars save me from the stupidity of drunkards." He cast her one last withering look before turning to leave.
She groaned childishly to the grey skies with weighted eyes. "Evfraaaaaa, let's fiiiight!" When she didn't hear a response, she continued whining, singing from the top of her lungs, "The leader of the Resistance is a scaredy-cat! Scaredy-cat! A big, fucking scare—"
"Evfra," Roaan called out in warning. "You're not leaving her here. Not like this."
Thea heard angry grumbling and heavy footsteps pounding into the puddles of rain before her arm was painfully yanked up and her body was thrown over Evfra's shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She laughed when she realized that he was still mumbling to himself, "… stupid human with her stupid drinking and her stupid…"
Her head lolled back and forth from his stomping, her vision blacking out. "You… you're whining… like a- like a child," she breathed in a high-pitched voice.
He grunted. "I'm a child? You should take a look at yourself."
She chuckled. "I've seen myself. No thanks." She mustered up the rest of her strength to pick her head up, taking in their surroundings— and started kicking at him with renewed vigor when she realized he was going to take her back to the Tempest.
"What are you— stop that!" He threw her to the ground, his chest huffed out in irritance. As she painstakingly teetered back onto her feet, he looked up into the skies, sighing deeply to regain his composure. "Pathfi—"
"Don' wanna go back," she slurred, pushing past him to go back the way they came. Her feet shuffled clumsily and she tripped, landing on her hands and knees. Pain coursed through her and she brought her palms up to inspect the bloody scrapes. "Motherfucker, that hurts," she complained, trying to pick out the small pebbles that had embedded themselves into her skin.
A blue hand slapped her hand away and she found herself staring into an oceanic abyss, her vision blurring out of focus. She blinked and the illusion was gone, replaced by Evfra's hard yet uncharacteristically concerned gaze.
Fuck, she must be really drunk.
His hands gently wrapped around her wrists and pulled her limp body up, only letting go once she was able to stand. Thea took a couple of wobbly steps forward.
And slipped on the steps that her hazy vision had overlooked, sending her face-first into the ground beneath her. She'd had enough sense to cushion her head during her fall, but it didn't make it any less painful. She felt her upper teeth dig into the inside of her lip, tasting the copper of her blood. She wrinkled her face at the taste and felt pain shoot from her nose. She palmed it gingerly— not broken but she'd definitely feel that in the morning. She brought her knees up and felt the bloody scrapes through the fabric of her rain-soaked pants. She tried to stand, but the pain that shot through her entire being proved too much for her. She laid back down on the cold, wet ground, defeated and accepting of her fate.
"Evfraaaaaaaa," she called out pitifully. "Carry meeeeeee." She heard him huff a long, hard sigh, and could almost picture him looking into the sky again, eyes closed, as if he were praying.
He grabbed her underarms, hoisting her over his shoulders once again. "Tell me why I'm doing this again," he mumbled.
"Because you're a good fucking person," Thea answered. As soon as Evfra took a step, her body swayed with his movements, making her head spin and her stomach nauseous. She tapped his back, covering her mouth. "No no no, gonna throw up like this."
Evfra's shoulder rose with his sigh, and he set her down, only to take her into his arms, cradling her body to his. She curled into his chest, shielding her face from the heavy drops of rain. The soft rocking of her body calmed her nausea. If not for the chilling wetness of their drenched clothes, she might have been lulled to sleep.
"Mmm, much better," she mumbled. She felt Evfra scoff as he took them further and further away from the Tempest.