[ His sudden stop gets her to stumble a little again, though she rights herself more quickly this time, looking back at him with faint curiosity. Could it be so surprising? Well... she's happy to spell it out for him. ]
To live under a master like yours for hundreds of years... to be crushed under a heel like that, always... I do not think I would be able to bear it. I would have surely lost my grip entirely. [ Murmured with morbid certainty. Being isolated in the realm of the dead was its own special kind of hell; the witch taunted her mercilessly, but when she thinks of her worst masters, and being stuck with them for centuries... her stomach churns. ] Yet you are still able to laugh, get annoyed, feel remorse, help others — just as you aid me now...
[ Her smile widens, stiff as it usually is; the smile she practiced so much in the mirror in her centuries alone, no longer remembering how to do it naturally on command. ]
You did well to hold onto those pieces of yourself so tightly. It is not at all so simple. I admire that, hehe.
[ It's praise, plain and simple, the kind she had always wanted to hear for enduring like she had, and the kind she's happy to have the chance to bestow onto him. She made it too — they're both standing here, right? — but some part of her wishes she had had the strength to hold onto those feelings, to be able to shout and smile and cry, instead of hollowing herself out as she had. In any case, she says this with the same calm elegance with which she says most everything, apparently not embarrassed nor ashamed of admitting something so personal. ]
Is that so shocking? You look as though you've seen a ghost.
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To live under a master like yours for hundreds of years... to be crushed under a heel like that, always... I do not think I would be able to bear it. I would have surely lost my grip entirely. [ Murmured with morbid certainty. Being isolated in the realm of the dead was its own special kind of hell; the witch taunted her mercilessly, but when she thinks of her worst masters, and being stuck with them for centuries... her stomach churns. ] Yet you are still able to laugh, get annoyed, feel remorse, help others — just as you aid me now...
[ Her smile widens, stiff as it usually is; the smile she practiced so much in the mirror in her centuries alone, no longer remembering how to do it naturally on command. ]
You did well to hold onto those pieces of yourself so tightly. It is not at all so simple. I admire that, hehe.
[ It's praise, plain and simple, the kind she had always wanted to hear for enduring like she had, and the kind she's happy to have the chance to bestow onto him. She made it too — they're both standing here, right? — but some part of her wishes she had had the strength to hold onto those feelings, to be able to shout and smile and cry, instead of hollowing herself out as she had. In any case, she says this with the same calm elegance with which she says most everything, apparently not embarrassed nor ashamed of admitting something so personal. ]
Is that so shocking? You look as though you've seen a ghost.