Better Than I Was Yesterday

except its the most savage playfighting anyone’s ever seen, so much so that it looks like Actual Fighting to everyone else

there are like, full on punches being thrown and dodged. theres a LOT of biting, mostly from rumi and zoey (“is this sexual or is it just a thing you guys do while playing” someone asks online. “yes” zoey says in response). someone gets kicked in the face and the person who does it barely remembers to give a half assed apology. mira gets rumi into a headlock (people who have over analyzed the footage realize rumi fucking MOANS when mira does it. rumi has no comment about that). zoey repeatedly wrestles the other two into…compromising positions, usually with her ending up…on top. someone twists someones arm in a weird position. theres some strange noises coming from pile that sound furious and yet also like laughter

all of it is so brutal and savage that logic dictates they SHOULD be walking away with bruises and scrapes and all sorts of other, more serious injuries.

and yet they just…dont. theyre a little scuffed up but they’re otherwise fine. footage from like ten minutes afterwards shows them happily munching on snacks and curled up together on a couch, and completely unharmed. people are losing their minds online about this.

later, when asked about it, the three members of huntr/x are very confused by people being concerned for their wellbeing. “that stuffs fun to us” mira says. “we just have so much energy, yknow” zoey says. “please dont talk about the moaning. wait i mean. what moaning. there is no moaning. i didnt moan.” rumi says.

We… were not. 

War had ravaged us, and sickness, and war once again, until our population dwindled beyond the point of recovery. We struggled against that, of course… we used genetic manipulation, and cloning, and even more desperate measures. None succeeded. When the humans came, we were sinking into apathy, only a few tens of us left. We had begun to discuss whether we should commit a mass suicide, or simply wait to fade away. 

And then the young species came, in their clumsy ships, and they asked us why we were so few. 

“We are becoming extinct,” we told them. “We have passed the point of recovery.” 

It is custom to avoid the races that are dying – once a species reaches the point of inevitable extinction, even war is suspended, and the fiercest enemy pulls back. The custom was born of plagues and poisons that could be carried forth from a dying world to afflict a healthy one, but it has the implacable weight of tradition now. After we are gone, after they have waited for the prescribed period of quarantine, there will be a fight for our world. Habitable worlds are few, and this is a good one, with plenty of free groundwater and thriving vegetation. It is a bitter thing to be grateful for the custom that allows us to die in peace, but we are grateful.

But the humans don’t know that custom, and they do not leave. They seem distraught, when we tell them we are dying, and try to offer their aid - but their technology is behind ours, and it is too late. When they realize that they can’t save us, though, they do something that bewilders us. 

"A marriage ending isn't a failure at all. I spent eleven years with her. We were so in love that we couldn't image life apart from each other. We got our own place, adopted a dog, and supported each other through school. I thought if tow people loved each other enough the rest would fall into place, except... love isn't everything.

And I didn't want to believe that, but we were sitting in counseling one day, talking about our future and I realized we were describing two completely different lives. Where we'd live, what kind of life we wanted, what made us happy. And it hit me that- I love this woman and this woman loved me. And after eleven years of loss, grief, career changes, we were so deeply in love... but we weren't aligned. And I kept thinking 'We just need to try harder. We can find some compromise to make this work,' because that's what you're supposed to do when you love someone, right?

But the reality was, we had just become different people. Her trade school took her in one direction, my graduate degree in another and trying to force us back into who we were five years ago wasn't coming from a place of love. It was coming from a place of fear. Fear that, if this ended, it meant we wasted eleven years. But sitting there across from her, I realized: That's not how love works.

Those eleven years happened. They were real. The dog, our home, showing up for each other through grad school and trade school. I wouldn't change a single thing because loving someone doesn't mean you're meant to stay with them forever. And letting go doesn't erase what you had. We measure marriage by whether it lasts forever or not, but what if we measured it by whether it mattered?

What if we measured it by the love we gave, the life we built, and the people we became? Because love's job isn't to last forever, it's to help you become fully completely yourself, and sometimes the most loving thing you can do is give each other permission to be yourselves, separately. But the dog doesn't know were' divorced. He just gets two Christmases now."

Who’s scarier: Terrifying Zoerumi, or Cuddleless Mira?

Achievements:

Don't shoot! I'm friendly!: Prove you're not a bot

AI dismemberment: Disable algorithm settings

Friends?: Gained a mutual

I recognize you: Follow someone you know from r/Tumblr

MY EYES!: Change the site palette

Great Idea: Reblog a post