[smiling at her slightly, a little flicker of warmth.]
...Thank you. [looking around their little room, which was frankly kind of depressing with waner's stuff still here but which she tried to fill with nice things anyway.] It's a bit odd. I think the version of me you knew, it was only a few weeks ago, but I don't know if I'm really the same person anymore.
I was so guarded, particularly with someone I was sharing quarters with.
It's natural to be guarded with someone you don't know well, isn't it? Especially when you are sharing quarters with them because of extenuating circumstances, and not by your own choice.
...it is not as though I was especially open with you either.
[waner's chao has now busied itself with trying to jump up and snatch back the pillow she'd confiscated from it. she lifts it out of the little creature's reach.]
...is it too late to try to be a little more open now, do you think? We have so little time left.
I wouldn't mind getting to know one another better.
[though it's weird to just announce that you will, it takes her a second to think of what she'll say.]
I was raised by a cult worshipping a very dark and frightening goddess, I was trained to want to become one of her warriors. But by the time I came here... I had already disobeyed her and had been discarded by her. I only wasn't ready to admit it or to think about what could come next. So I stubbornly tried to cling to those Sharran ways.
[there is so much to unpack there. waner blinks for a moment, taking that in, and then nods.]
It can be... incredibly difficult to live in a way that is at odds with the way you have been raised. Even if you weren't ready to admit it at first, you still did end up taking that step in the end... I think that takes a lot of courage.
[she's a little flustered at that, but warm feelings anyway.]
I thank you, but... I don't know about my own courage. I was lucky to have been forced to confront these things by people who wouldn't let me look away from it. [she'll always owe elysia in particular for ratshaking her so hard over it.]
[well. shadowheart has shared her life story and waner supposes it's only fair if she shares hers, since this is supposed to be a two-way street...]
...my father claimed he was in love with my mother but married her sister, and then brought me and my mother into his household while promising to make my mother his wife and to acknowledge me as his daughter when I was fifteen. Instead he made her his concubine, allowed my half-sister to torment us, and then when she set my mother up and framed her for having an affair, he beat my mother and she advised me to run away and convince a nobleman to marry me so my father couldn't mistreat her anymore. ...only the man who promised to marry me made me his concubine instead.
[it sounds kind of petty and soap-opera dramatic in comparison.]
[she is so tired of men and also nobility and politics.]
Status and security, yes. Wives in Daxing are respected, and marrying into a noble family means that a woman's relatives are also protected because to harm them would be to offend the wife of a member of an influential family. But concubines are treated almost as if they are servants, and can really only attain any sort of status if they bear sons. Even then, if the man has a wife, they cannot complain no matter how they are treated.
[she makes an aggravated noise in the back of her throat.]
...I know now that he never intended to keep it. [honestly she would kind of like to murder him for it but she keeps that to herself because she would like to get to go home come judgment day and not just get cast down to hell.] He just told me what I wanted to hear.
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[but, like. enough things have gone wrong in this heaven that it was one of those "i'll believe it when i see it" things for her.]
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but! that's depressing, so she changes the subject.]
...I like your new hair color. It suits you well.
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...Thank you. [looking around their little room, which was frankly kind of depressing with waner's stuff still here but which she tried to fill with nice things anyway.] It's a bit odd. I think the version of me you knew, it was only a few weeks ago, but I don't know if I'm really the same person anymore.
I was so guarded, particularly with someone I was sharing quarters with.
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...it is not as though I was especially open with you either.
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...is it too late to try to be a little more open now, do you think? We have so little time left.
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[though it's weird to just announce that you will, it takes her a second to think of what she'll say.]
I was raised by a cult worshipping a very dark and frightening goddess, I was trained to want to become one of her warriors. But by the time I came here... I had already disobeyed her and had been discarded by her. I only wasn't ready to admit it or to think about what could come next. So I stubbornly tried to cling to those Sharran ways.
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It can be... incredibly difficult to live in a way that is at odds with the way you have been raised. Even if you weren't ready to admit it at first, you still did end up taking that step in the end... I think that takes a lot of courage.
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I thank you, but... I don't know about my own courage. I was lucky to have been forced to confront these things by people who wouldn't let me look away from it. [she'll always owe elysia in particular for ratshaking her so hard over it.]
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[elysia is good at ratshaking people, from what waner has seen.]
They may have made it so you couldn't turn away, but you are the one who chose not to close your eyes. Give yourself a least a little credit.
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[anyway that's her whole life story. if it helps.]
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...my father claimed he was in love with my mother but married her sister, and then brought me and my mother into his household while promising to make my mother his wife and to acknowledge me as his daughter when I was fifteen. Instead he made her his concubine, allowed my half-sister to torment us, and then when she set my mother up and framed her for having an affair, he beat my mother and she advised me to run away and convince a nobleman to marry me so my father couldn't mistreat her anymore. ...only the man who promised to marry me made me his concubine instead.
[it sounds kind of petty and soap-opera dramatic in comparison.]
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...Men are awful, aren't they.
[girl, fuck all of that.]
What is the difference, to be a wife or a concubine? Status, security?
[she is actually from a fairly gender egalitarian world, though there is still a lot of abuse of power and bad stuff that happens to people.]
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[she is so tired of men and also nobility and politics.]
Status and security, yes. Wives in Daxing are respected, and marrying into a noble family means that a woman's relatives are also protected because to harm them would be to offend the wife of a member of an influential family. But concubines are treated almost as if they are servants, and can really only attain any sort of status if they bear sons. Even then, if the man has a wife, they cannot complain no matter how they are treated.
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[it's not familiar to her, exactly, but the cruelty of it is.]
So because of what he did, you weren't able to get that protection for your mother.
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[she makes an aggravated noise in the back of her throat.]
...I know now that he never intended to keep it. [honestly she would kind of like to murder him for it but she keeps that to herself because she would like to get to go home come judgment day and not just get cast down to hell.] He just told me what I wanted to hear.