justifying the means

shitty horoscopes || accepting

“then why did you even bother?” bitter, perhaps, but ultear was honestly getting tired of having to re-evaluate her plans in regards to her mother’s existence. and people wondered why she hated the woman, who continued to show up at the worst possible times. “you could’ve just given in and not had to deal with any of this.”

after all, ur was very good at walking away from things that were too hard for her to face, at least in her daughter’s eyes.

perhaps the two were speaking of different things, of different events in their intertwined lives. who could know for sure, as ultear had developed a skill at being cryptic, and she wasn’t about to be clearer until she so chose. but for now, she would just glare out the window, as if she wasn’t even speaking to the ice mage.

with gritted teeth, meredy sighed. had ultear always been this infuriating? perhaps. but until right before they had parted way, they had been on the same side … or so she had thought. these days, even that knowledge felt more like a vague guess than like a certainty. crossing her arms over her chest, meredy reminded herself that she no longer cared about what ultear thought of her — and that she was better off ignoring underhanded compliments. she had seen ultear wave her webs for  years,  she knew better than to stumble into the honeyed traps.

she could be  mean.  she could inform ultear, quite coolly, that she could always turn her in, if that this was what it would take for her to just give meredy the honest answers she wanted. because ultear was right — this world was not a place where people tended to get what they wanted. but it seemed that the  witch  had also forgotten that  she  had been the one to teach meredy that she had to take what she wanted.

“ i don’t have to trust you  as a person  to trust your words. ” meredy’s voice was quiet, controlled. when she had first run, she had thought that would she ever see ultear again, she would turn into a weepy, emotional mess. how fortunate it was to see now that this concern had been pointless. evaluating the years spent near the witch was paying off, and meredy could not be more relieved. she was no child that cried easily anymore.

“ and i don’t  want  to hurt you. this does not have to escalate, ultear. you can give me what i want and run off, chase down another … mad hope, ” she continued, her words now gaining an edge — though she doubted that ultear would be  surprised.  she had been the one to raise meredy, she had been the one to  make  her what she had been before the castle of lies had collapsed and meredy had been violently  unmade.  “ or are you  that  afraid of telling the truth for once in your life? ”

finally, that empty smile she wore as her most common mask fell from her face, replaced by a frown that hinted at the anger that ran deep in her bones. dark eyes, opening to rest on the younger girl as if seeing her clearly for the first time, narrowed in the same movement. no, this was not the girl ultear had kept closer than she probably should’ve, and now the consequences were beginning to make themselves known. and oh how that annoyed her, more than she was willing to say.

why had she gone east, instead of north, or west? both were perfectly viable directions for her to escape the family that she wanted nothing to do with. (she knew the answer: it was because that was what they’d expect, and as such were dangerous for her.) drumming painted nails on one forearm, the time witch was left with few options. none of which she liked.

“the truth is relative. ever shifting, never solid.” that was something ultear had clung to, manipulating as she pulled the strings of her puppets. “it’s rarely what people want to hear, in my experiences.” she certainly hadn’t wanted the truths she had recently uncovered, and was currently running away from them. 

some meme i lost

her lips curl in a smirk, but the funniest part of this whole thing is how oblivious the man before her is of the joke. then again, that was part of her job, to manipulate him into doing grimoire heart’s bidding — into doing her bidding. and he was doing it oh so well, to the point where she was quite pleased with how things were going. soon, they would complete the tower, and then the real fun would begin.

ultear was quite looking forward to literally bringing the people who pushed the ‘saint ur’ narrative to their knees.

❝ but this is what she learned from her mother: always run before you get too close, conceal your talons beneath pale pink nails && a honeyed tongue until the moment is right,                                smile, smile, SMILE. ❞

“ all those years and you’re still the same. it’s like you’ve been frozen. ”

though this, this was something meredy had expected. people like ultear did not change on the inside, only donned another mask,  another lie.  if meredy wanted to, she probably could force the truth out of her. she had learnt things about her magic when she had been on her own, things she probably would never have learnt in grimoire heart.  ( there, the power she had been granted had been carefully measured. )  but a truth forced out of ultear was nothing she was interested in. hurting people did not bring her the joy it once had.

it no longer brought her joy because meredy had changed, because she had come to make her own decisions and because she was no longer trying to impress people who did not care about her. when she had lost her old life — her second life — she had gained the freedom to start over.

“ i don’t want fewer lies, i want honest answers, you owe me that much, ” she said quietly, happy to feel disappointment instead of anger. “ much like you’d want honest answers, should the person who betrayed  you  ever cross your path. ”

not that  that  would ever happen. ultear’s mother was dead and whatever secrets she had kept, whatever  her  truth had been, had died alongside her. it was … sad, meredy supposed but it was not her problem. the ice mage had made her choice, had refused the chance to ever explain herself. and maybe, maybe meredy resented her for that just a little bit. ultear  could  grant her closure, but she would never find closure for herself.

… unless the whole arc of time deal  could  actually work. then, all bets would be off.

frozen.

meredy had no way of knowing just how close to home that word would hit her, and on some level, the time witch knew that it was not an intentional jab. but still, with all the recent discoveries regarding her parentage, it took a good deal of self-control to keep herself from wincing at it. if she had frozen, it was because ice flowed in her veins to a degree even she hadn’t expected.

what would the girl before her say, if ultear confessed the real reason she had fled fiore? if she told her that she had found out who her father was, and that he was the cause of so many of her problems? she had gotten some answers to her own questions, and now she was trying to deal with the consequences of them.

“honest answers...” a quiet laugh, humorless in its delivery, escaped her lips, but dark eyes refused to meet the other’s. “and since when has anyone gotten what they were owed in this world?” she had gotten some answers, and they had been enough for the woman to turn and run.

a shake of her head, and she closed her eyes in what would be sadness in any other woman. “no one gets what they want, meredy. it just doesn’t happen. not without people hurting.” that was why she had been searching for the truth of arc of time, why she had been chasing it so much. perhaps she just wanted to save the girl she had been from the heartbreak that had formed the woman she was. 

whatever meredy  had  expected, it had not quite been this. she had — imagined similar situations when she had first come here, to a place where no one would search for her, but her daydreams then had circled around revenge, around cruelty. the years had washed this desire away; focusing on a hypothetical revenge had not gotten her anywhere, focusing on the present had. the monks liked to say that the past was done with one once one was done with it, and maybe, they had had a point.

( it would not be the first time that there was truth in their teachings. )

looking at ultear, meredy studied the woman’s face carefully. she had not changed much, despite the years that had passed. maybe, maybe she could spot the tiniest trace of confusion. or insecurity. whatever  ultear  had expected, it had not been this either.  good.  it meant that in the end, ultear did not know meredy the way she thought she did. and this thought was strangely comforting. because maybe, it meant that meredy was not  becoming  ultear.

“ i hear fiore is going to hell, ” meredy shrugged, not caring too much. it was the country where she had been born, certainly, but — she had spent many of her formative years in a dark guild. sometimes … sometimes this still showed.

plucking off the petals of the flower she had picked earlier, green eyes found ultear again as she stood. “ but i don’t care about what you did there, right now, ” she admitted with a shrug. again — she would have to focus caring more about others and less about her own problems. this was no way to live. “ i’ve many questions, but just one that really matters. will you answer honestly? ”

there was no point to asking a question if she could not trust the answer. another lie — no matter how small, no matter how big — would only serve to reignite meredy’s anger, and she was done being angry. anger was not a productive emotion, it only made things messy and unnecessarily complicated. truth be told —— most emotions did this, but she had always thought that out of them all, anger was the worst offender.

right, there had been whispers of a war between the nation ultear had grown to look down on and the one ruled by the man she knew to hold the key she sought. and, not for the first time, she questioned her choice to head east rather than west. (but that’s what others expected of her, and if she were to remain free, she needed to avoid those people.) “that’s actually not my doing, but it can burn for all i care.”

fiore was too full of reminders of her mother, and she was tired of dealing with that.

dark hair shifted — as she was in her true form for now, in a place where the only one to recognize her also wouldn’t report her before she could escape — as she tilted her head. of all the questions for meredy to ask, she chose that one first. on one hand, it made sense, to gauge how much she could trust later answers, but also...

“you have no reason to believe anything i say, so what reason do i have to answer that question?” if she lied, and said yes, then what would stop her from lying in the future? the fact that it had been broached gave her all the cause to do just that, after all, and lies were what ultear dealt in far more than truths. truths were dangerous, weapons in the hands of her enemies, and she had learned at a young age to never just hand over such things.