Rule By Regret

You really don’t know how to do anything without cranking it up to eleven.

You ignore every olive branch, twig, or leaf I even remotely wave at you in favor of damning yourself with self fulfilling predictions because you’re SO SURE you managed to RUIN EVERYTHING EVER despite me saying outright that you came damn close, but you didn’t make me give up on you.

I’m going to stop responding now, because I’m trying to enjoy a nice dinner with my fiance at a very expensive restaurant and you’re winding yourself up by reading everything I say in the most negative way possible. Go take a cold shower or something you absolute diva.

...alright. I apologize. I’m new at this.

Congratulations on your engagement, by the way. I don’t think I’ve said that yet.

Or just someone who you think turned out better adjusted than you.

Congratulations, you win the grand prize.

Do you want me to say it outright? Fine.

You are better than me. At speaking to people. At making allies. At making friends. At everything that doesn’t directly involve killing someone, not getting killed by someone, or planning to do so. At living a life that isn’t a constant cycle of violence perpetuating more violence. 

Hey, quick question;

Are you literally ever anything besides needlessly dramatic?

You came into this knowing damn well I’d be furious at you. The hell do you expect, me to suddenly turn a 180 and tell you that everything’s going to be rosy just because you asked for help? This isn’t a game of fucking politics, stop acting like you can find some secret hidden meaning behind everything I say and use whatever common sense you have.

I’m not a moron, mistakes are part of being a living being. You can fuck right off with your evasion tactics, I know exactly what you’re doing because Seapup does this exact thing when he wants to distract me. Congratulations on acting like a literal child!

I expected you to understand, on some level, what might motivate someone to act the way I did. I expected you to understand that maybe, just maybe, making myself emotionally vulnerable to someone for the first time ever might color how I react to things.

Don’t you dare presume to know my thoughts, Korytheos. I am not so low as to waste my time tearing down the shell of a man who’s barely even functioning. That’s fucking vile, I’m better than that and you damn well know it. Lose the cowardice and face the fact that you’ll have to put actual work into improving.

But, yeah. If you’re going to give up that easily, go ahead. I don’t expect much from you anyway.

I’m taking your words at face value. Helping me would be secondary to avenging yourself, and you’ve all but explicitly said that I only get a single mistake before you write me off for good.

I am going to make mistakes. My life has been nothing but mistakes and treachery since before humans knew how to forge iron. You cannot expect me to unlearn behaviors that kept me from being murdered in my sleep for thousands of years on a ‘one screw-up and I’m done’ system.

Yeah, well. I’m not your therapist, and I’m not going to lie to you about this. Because I still can’t do that, aren’t you lucky.

The only reason I’d help you at this point is being able to tell you exactly what I thought of your shitty ego, and if it helps you change for the better? Great.

Like you’ve noticed and taken advantage of before, I’m way nicer and way more patient than people deserve. That’s why people know they can trust me, it takes so much to make me completely give up on someone. But you’ve come the closest in recent memory, be aware of that and do not test me again.

...I see. I appreciate your honesty, Valera. 

And if that’s really how you feel, then don’t force yourself. You won’t be happy, and I won’t learn. You’ll spend every day thinking of ways to tear me down, and I’ll spend every night seething and wondering if it’s all really worth it. If we were going to be adversaries like that, I’d prefer we at least be honest about it.

Call it my ego again. Maybe it is. Maybe some day I’ll be able to swallow it enough to make that sound like a good idea. But right now, if the choice is to part ways, or to test my patience against your ability to remember how I hurt you? Let’s just say I don’t trust myself very much right now.

Yeah, welcome to life among the little people, you arrogant ass. Real shame when bluster and pride do more harm than good! Because that’s your problem. 

You’re so full of pride you completely ignore every single mistake you make and brush it aside like it’s all beneath you.

Here’s a tip, since I’m expected to take pity on you. You reap what you sow!

If you hold everyone at arms length, you wont have any friends! If you act like an arrogant ass, people won’t like you!

How many times is pride going to have to ruin your life before you realize that it’s nothing but poison.

Give me one good reason why I should help you? Why should I put forth the slightest bit of effort into figuring anything out for you?

I don’t have one. I have threats, I have bribes, I have emotional manipulation, but when I take those away, I don’t have anything. What should I tell you? What I think you want to hear? What you stand to gain? Appeal to your pity, and whatever slight shreds of respect might be left?

No fucking SHIT. Any person with a shred of decency in them would be sorry, but no. You didn’t even have the decency to stop there. One of the very VERY few things you ever told me about yourself? You come back and not even a week later shit all over that! Any scrap of respect I had left for you, any glimmer of admiration or hope of fixing things? Got shot straight to hell.

I can’t trust a single thing you’ve ever told me, because you clearly had no issue lying to me. So yeah, good job. You figured me out, you got what you wanted. Sorry I’m not worthy enough for you, terribly sorry to disappoint!

And since you decided to be petty? Yes. That IS how I want to play it. Guess I’m just a coward! Feel free to change your view on me, I don’t value your opinion enough to be hurt by it.

I can’t make excuses for what happened with Damithal. I can’t explain why I did what I did, why I thought it was a good idea, what possessed me to make a decision like that. I could speculate, maybe find a way to figure out what happened.

It wouldn’t change anything, though, would it?

It wouldn’t change that I hurt you. It wouldn’t change what I did to you. And it wouldn’t change that I still don’t know how to treat people like people. I’m trying, Valera. I’m trying to stop seeing the world like everything is either trying to kill me, or is a tool to kill someone else.

I’m trying to learn, but I don’t even know what I don’t know. I’m lost and confused and nothing makes sense. 

I need you like I need a hole in the head and you know it, when was the last time you had ANY positive impact on my life?

We met, and you immediately started putting the pressure on, ~testing me~ to see if I was ~worthy~ when I’m a minuscule fraction of your age. Not even teaching me, just expecting me to be on the same fucking level by virtue of what, ten years of flying on instinct and whatever I managed to pick up on my own? Yeah, great move, real charming.

As of that wasn’t enough, you decide, hey! I should open up to you for no reason, when you’d be hard pressed to tell me the color of the damn sky without trying to make yourself sound superior for having the knowledge I didn’t. You were coming at me whenever you thought you saw weakness! And if I didn’t open up I was either passing a test or somehow being foolish! You weren’t being a friend then, and you aren’t being one now.

So terribly sorry I have no faith in you, Korytheos.

Congrats. You’re not as smart as you think you are if you let your pride make an idiot out of you. Find a damn therapist next time you decide to fuck off and slip into a coma for a few months.

Great, glad you got that off your chest. I’m so nice and so trusting and put too much faith in others, that was foolish of me, whatever. I won’t make that mistake again. Thanks for the lesson, I’ll send a payment to hell.

Thank you for listening.

Gods you’re dramatic. Have you never heard of something called Therapy?

And that doesn’t change a damn thing, as handy as that little tidbit is. You’re still a liar and a hypocrite.

Would you believe I had never considered it? I suppose I should, now.

I understand, Valera. I understand that you’re angry, not just because I left, but because...

You trusted me, and I never trusted you. I never told you anything about myself you couldn’t find in a textbook. I never let myself be vulnerable around you for a moment, and yet, you trusted me with one of the most precious things a person can be entrusted with. The well-being of your son.

No.

I’ll spare you the details and minutia.

When a Rigateran reaches a point where their mental and emotional stamina runs out, usually because of some major event, it kicks in an instinct. We withdraw to the deepest part of our lairs, and enter, well, it’s easiest to call it a trance.

We dream, vividly, recollecting all the memories and experiences we’ve had since our last one, reexamining everything we knew, thought we knew. The longer it’s been, the longer it takes, and the more dramatic the effect on the individual will be.

I’ve only shed twice in my life, Valera. The first time was when my son died.

This had better be important, Korytheos.

It is.