i don't want to talk about that

Her jaw clenches,  shoulders slumping because she gets it.   There’s so much she doesn’t want to remember,  either—   but this place has made it clear that she doesn’t get the choice,    she can still feel it all throughout her body,  like an open wound.  

She gulps, taking one small step forward.  ❝  You’re one of the bravest people I know, Victor.  ❞  She says it simply,  because to her,  it is simple—  she knows what it’s like to be on her own in a terrifying place,  and she only experienced it for a fraction of what he has.  She’s always known him as brave,  and even when he was vulnerable with her in the basement,  that’s still what she was.  

But his mind computes it: she's stopped inches away because she left him an opening. The ability to choose doesn't come often, not in this town, and while Victor doesn't recognise it entirely, it's meaningful Sara offered it to him.

One hand still buried in his hair, Victor mumbles under his breath. And though he turns away from her, his free hand takes one of Sara's, clutching it like a child would. The more he tries to remember, the more the bad pictures fill his mind, and he's tired of hearing Jasper screaming.

"Westeros..." He whispered as he tried to think back on the last time he had felt somewhat normal. The days were blending together and he hated it.

He hoped Caraxes was okay. He hoped his army was okay.

Daemon had stopped coloring as his grip tightened on the crayon before he quickly set it down, not wanting to break anything of Victors.

Victor fidgets, fingers rubbing together where they lie hidden beneath the table. The upset on Daemon's face leaves him uncomfortable, but Victor supposes this was probably his fault. He was the one who opened his big mouth and said Daemon's precious dragon wasn't real. Anyone would be sad about that.

"How big were they?" he asks, hoping to change the subject.

he's wrong; she does need to. maybe it's a debt she owes to herself, or maybe it's because there's something about his brutal honesty that she finds refreshing. maybe it's just the fact that he doesn't seem to be afraid of her the same way the others do. for so long now, she's longed for anyone to do the same for her, to see her as a person rather than just a burden or one-step away from what waits for them at night, and while she hasn't spent much of her time here talking to him, there's something about him that feels familiar to her, like he's easier to talk to than most, and not just because he's one of the few people willing to give her the chance.

Victor whimpers. There'd been an attempt at talking there, but talking is hard. When his head gets noisy, and when the Town starts speaking (or maybe it's the memories, or the nightmares, but sometimes the nightmares are the memories and you can't really be sure), all Victor can do is curl into himself. That's what he does now: sinking from the standing position he'd been in, one hand clutches at his hair, and the other tries to keep him from toppling by setting itself on the floor.

Victor sits, back curved and head bowed.

"I don't like to remember," he whispers. (The whispers in his head are louder.) "I'm-- But I'm trying to be brave. I know my m-mother would want me to--"

Suddenly, he lets out a sharp cry. The Town never likes when he remembers, and it likes even less that he's started to tell Sara more stories since that night in the basement.

"I could say the same about the monsters in those woods, but I don't." He huffed and shook his head before continuing his drawing of him riding Caraxes into war.

"Dragons don't... there weren't any dragons in the world outside. Even I know they're just stories."

But then... the world outside had been bigger, hadn't it? Victor contemplates the map of the United States in the sheriff's station, then wonders if maybe they'd found dragons in Nevada. That was really far away from Maine, and way hotter too.

Watching Daemon colour his picture, Victor exhales through his nostrils.