"I said how earnest and nonchalant they were...but it only served to highlight the way I couldn't express such things in myself. I never once doubted them. So many other things, but never that they were being dishonest or insincere. But..." she struggled to put the words together. "I see. I believed their words in my head while my heart cried for justice. It felt so suffocating because I was too weak to insist otherwise." The last sentence was met with a dark chuckle, one that didn't take a mind reader to hear the biting back of tears.
Lucy shook her head. "I think you really wanted to believe them, that's why it was so hard for you to admit otherwise. The fact that you can acknowledge that you still have a lot of things you have to work through…I think that's a mark of courage. And I think your friends would admit the same if you told them about how you feel."
"Do you really think it would be helpful?"
"You never know until you try. This is just my own thoughts as well, but knowing what you still have to improve on and striving to be better is one of the things that occur when true forgiveness happens."
"I still don't know…I wasn't exaggerating about the stubbornness part."
"Hey, if you really did use to be so high up, I'm sure you could just disguise it as a formal guild meeting."
"That would make them listen even less!"
The two women laughed honestly, Minerva as much as Lucy from what Cobra could hear. She did seem comforted by Lucy's words. As he skimmed the surface of her mind once more he found the maelstrom having dissipated some; the center of her mind slowly breaking apart the torrent of berating thoughts to give way to bright, soothing rays of a newfound determination. The clouds never fully left, but the winds were dying down, and he could almost hear a steady fall of rain.