Behind Glass
by Capella Morningside
Summary: A certain someone ponders their role in the universe on a stormy night in Termina. One-shot, and I'll give you a cookie if you know who the speaker is.
Author's Note: Don't ask. Really, just don't. My muses were bothering me so badly to write this it hurt. And by the way, if you're reading this, Heide or Tabitha... I'm very, very, very sorry, and please, don't hurt me.
Although I could have very easily just gone home and left the others for the evening, I conceded to stay with them here in this run-down inn on the condition that I would not be asked to share my bed with Pip or Poshul. Not that it would have mattered, I think now, since insomnia has led me out of the room where the others slumber and to the one window in the lobby. I doubt I'll be getting much sleep tonight.
If I were anyone else, I know that I'd probably be followed and requested to tell my troubles to some kind, understanding soul. That stopped working with me a long time ago, since my very beginnings with this group. It didn't take the others, especially Serge, long to figure out that I'm not the type you should worry about. I spend most of my time in my own thoughts anyway... Karsh and his type always dismiss it as daydreaming.
And perhaps I do daydream, but not as much and not of the same things I used to. This journey has been not only one of adventure and heroism, but of self-realizations too. Some of us will admit it more readily than others, but every single person in this large and still-growing group has learned some truth about themselves, and it is always, I repeat, always harsh. It's those little things we knew about ourselves all along, brushed off for years; up until the day where something happens to make it come back and smack you in the face like a mutated plant in the poisoned marshes. Then it's impossible to ignore, and will be right there, like the stinging reminiscence of a slap from a maiden, as long as we all live. Given we all get out of here alive.
I know what you're asking. What was your painful self-realization?
This was something I'd known, of course. An egg, a crab, an oyster, whatever kind of allusion you wish to make about it, it's that my exterior, the face I put on, is different from how I really am.
But! I differ from others like this still. My exterior is not meant for the usual purposes: to draw others to me, to bear impact so I am not emotionally harmed, to project what I wish I was. Me? I project everything I hate. Weakness, egocentricity, boldness to the point of stupidity... things I despise. I put up this wall to drive others away; for what reason I am not sure, that was lost long ago with who I really was. My foul mask has consumed me to the point that my soul has fused with it, and my old self perished, withering within this beautifully ugly shell. So I go on, calling myself something I am not, pretending not to notice the dismissals from those around me.
They ignore me, they avoid me, and I might go so far as to say that if I were to fall in battle through valiance or cowardice, they'd be glad to be rid of me. And it pains to say, now, but that's fine by me.
I put my hand to the window, wishing in vain to feel the rivulets of water outside trail over my hand, and sigh. I've always loved windows... everything looks so much better behind glass.
