Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 32
32
"I don't remember much after that," Nilia admitted, not even sure why she was still talking. "It doesn't matter anyway. Story's over."
She made to push Mateo away, but hesitated. She had worked so hard to get the damn story out, had gone through literally the worst possible hell inside her own mind, but now that it was done, she found herself almost regretting the way she had rushed through it, if it meant that this Fox would have to... stop holding her like this.
You're pathetic. You made two promises, one to your mother, and one to yourself. You promised you would be strong, and you broke that promise. You promised you would never cry again, and you broke that promise. You're still breaking that promise with every tear you shed, and now you seek comfort from this little red ball of fur? You're like a child.
Is it really such a terrible thing? Is it really such an awful sin to be held? Just for a little while? If not by the arms of the one I - of the one I care about, then why not by the arms of a total stranger? Is it really so wrong to be held? Just for a little while...?
For you it is. The last ones who held you, who cared for you, who loved you, died because of you. They died because you couldn't stop crying, like you're crying now.
But that wasn't true. Her tears had dried up. She wasn't sure when it happened, but... she didn't feel as bad as that voice inside her head was insisting she should. She felt calm. This wasn't the stony kind of calm she forced upon herself like a rock-hard shell every time she needed to focus on the task at hand, this was a different kind of calm, a calm that seemed to come from the inside. Had she ever felt like this before? This was like...
And then she remembered. Yes, she had felt this before, and it wasn't just a one-time thing, either. She used to feel like this_all the time_, back when she was a very small child, before the illness came. She remembered coming in after playing in the rain, her fur all messy and tangled and covered in mud. She remembered the way her mother had clicked her tongue and shaken her head, grumbling about how her enka would one day end up with a name like 'Modder' or 'Grond' or 'Girl Who likes to Roll Around in Mud All Day' but after the washup was done, they had both ended up laughing at the way her hair stood up in funny spikes. She remembered how Father had picked her up and said, "I could plant you by the river and you'd look just like a clump of reeds."
She remembered going to bed that night, all warm and soft and clean, with Father on her left and Mother on her right, all three of them together, so happy. She remembered the way that felt, that calm feeling, that everything was right in the world, that everything was exactly as it should be. She remembered how it had felt to be loved.
That was what she felt now.
So instead of pushing him away, like she had started to do, she pulled him in closer. "Mateo?" she whispered. "Why do you cry for me?"
He sniffed, and Nilia felt his hand briefly leave her back as he wiped his eyes. "I don't know. It just feels right. Like it's the way it's supposed to be. Like... like I've found something I can do, by being myself, that will actually do good. I feel like, when I'm with you, I can be who I am and it won't hurt anyone. And I hope that - I know this is insane - but I hope that, when you're with me, that I can make you feel the same way, that you can be who you really are without being afraid that you'll hurt someone."
"Why do you want to help me? I'm a stranger to you."
"You're not anymore, so stop saying that."
"But I am. One night doesn't change that. So how can you cry for me like you do?"
"Do you even know why people cry, Nilia?"
Such a simple question, but it gave her pause. Why do people cry? She had seen so many tears shed in her lifetime, each one a testament to the heart that birthed it. Ander, Hezzi, Chieftain Kadai, Sorrin, Mellah, Renna, Danado, Lana, even Shekka. Had she not seen all of them shed bitter tears in the last few weeks? Had she not watched them with an uncomfortable kind of separation, like she was witnessing an act completely alien to her, something she had no right to look upon? She understood that it was love that made them feel such pain, that it was love that cut their hearts wide open and that their tears were the blood of those wounds. She understood that her tears were different from theirs, because she didn't have any love like that to cry about. Her tears were not born out of love, but something else, and she knew exactly what it was. She knew it since the moment she broke her promise all those long years ago.
"I cry because I'm weak..."
"No." She felt his tiny claws prick her back, felt a fresh wave of tears seep into her shoulder. "There are hundreds of thousands of reasons for people to cry, but it always comes down to one of two things: pain or joy. We cry because we hurt the ones we love, but because we love them, we can feel that pain in their hearts and that's what hurts us, that's what causes us pain, and that's why we cry. You cry because you feel pain, and I cry because I feel it with you. I can feel it because your pain_hurts_ me, Nilia. It hurts me."
Those words awoke a flash of anger inside of her, more brilliant than the lightning that had carved the sky on the day she earned her name. She tried to pull him off, but he was stuck on her like an annoying tick. "Get off me!"
"No!"
"I said get off!"
"No!"
"I have lived with a tribe of bloodthirsty Wolves my whole life, some of them so crazy they mutilated each other for sport, but you, Mateo, are the most insane person I have ever met! You just told me you hoped I could be myself without hurting anyone, and now you say my very presence is hurting you!? You say that people cry because they hurt the ones they love and that they can feel that pain because of that love. Fine, I can understand that. I've _seen_that. But you also say you can feel _my_pain? You say you cry for me because I can't cry for myself, and seeing me in so much pain hurts you? What are you really saying, Mateo? Drop all this nonsensical emotional drivel and just tell me outright!"
She was hoping he wouldn't do it. She was hoping her confrontation would scare him off. She was hoping he'd just clam up, back away, and go to sleep or slink on home, or do just about anything other than open his mouth, without any hesitation, and say: "Well, I guess I'm saying I might be falling in l-"
She finally managed to break his surprisingly strong grip and clamped her fingers down on his muzzle, trapping that word inside. Now it was her turn to simply say, "No!"
Unperturbed, Mateo simply nodded his disagreement. Yes.
"No!"
Another nod, another silent yes.
"You weren't kidding when you said you felt 'too much'. But this goes way beyond 'too much', Fox. Insanity I might be able to forgive, since there is no way anyone can control it, but there is no excuse for such extreme levels of stupidity!"
He kept on nodding. I know.
"Do you? Because I don't think you do. Just because we made love doesn't mean any love was involved."
Mateo's eyes went wide and he pried her fingers off his muzzle. "'Made love'? Did you really just say 'made love'?"
"I mean - it was a slip of the -"
"A few minutes ago it was just an itch that needed scratching, and now you're talking about making love?"
"Shut up! It's just an expression!"
"And you expressed it so expressively. Bravo."
"I will punch you in the face. Hard." Nilia was seething, but the smarmy little puffball just smiled. He actually smiled at her threat. "What!? What's so damn funny!?"
Mateo covered his mouth and did his absolute best to supress a snigger. He succeeded (just barely) and it was a good thing, too, because Nilia was deadly serious about punching him in the face. "I'm sorry," he said, his eyes glistening from the effort of keeping a straight face. "It's just that you're so much more beautiful when you're happy."
"Happy?" Every time this Fox opened his mouth, Nilia achieved a new apex of incredulity. "You think this is me being 'happy'? My people come to slaughter everyone east of the mountain, Ander has gone native, and I just went through hell retelling a story I have dragged with me for years, a story about how my weakness killed my parents, and you think this is the time for me to be 'happy'? Well, it's not! This is a time when I might want to be sad and miserable, but I don't have that luxury because there are too many people counting on me to be Nilia! This is not the time to be happy! This is the time to be strong! This is the time to be brave! This is the time to never cry, no matter how badly I might want to!"
"But you don't want to cry anymore. I can tell. At least, not for the same reasons you used to."
"And I suppose you know all this because you can 'feel' what I feel? Don't be so arrogant. You have no idea what I feel."
"Nilia, when I looked at you tonight, when I held you and listened to your voice, everything about you made me feel sad, because you were sad. You made me feel like crying because you felt like crying. You couldn't let it out by yourself, so I cried your tears for you. But now, when I look at you, when I listen to you, when I touch you, I don't feel like that anymore. It doesn't hurt here..." He raked his fingers across the left side of his chest. "And I think it's because you're not in pain anymore. You've been carrying that wound for so long that it became a part of your life. You forgot what it was ever like to not be in pain. Even now you reject the idea."
"You're full of it, Mateo."
"Then prove me wrong! Look me in the eye and tell me you're exactly the same as you were before you told me that story! Tell me you're still the same old emotionless husk of a Wolfess who'd rather just stand in a dark corner with her arms crossed than let in even a single ray of happiness! Do it! Look me in the eye and tell me!"
"I will!"
"Come on, then!"
Nilia sprang forward as if she were about to attack him, their noses barely an inch apart, and she looked Mateo dead in the eye. "I. Am. Not. Hap-"
She stuttered on the last word. Ordinarily it would only last as long as it took to draw in breath and try again, but she couldn't. It felt wrong. Just as that first tear striking Mateo's open eye felt wrong, this felt wrong.
He stared back, not blinking, not moving a muscle, just waiting for her to catch up to what he had somehow known before she did.
She didn't feel sad. She didn't feel miserable. She didn't feel like crying.
This night... this crazy, infuriating, insane, maddening night... the time she spent bickering and arguing with this Fox, getting mad, getting sad, getting scared, threatening to punch him in the face, shouting at him, nearly strangling him to death, listening to his nonsensical ramblings, watching the way his skinny chest rose and fell when he got emotional, every kiss, every hug, feeling his heart beat against her chest, ridiculously fast, every interaction she had with him, every exchange, both physical and mental, all of it...
It was fun. She was having fun.
She was feeling...
"I may be out of line," Mateo said, "so feel free to punch me if you want, but I think..." He took the bear claw necklace and held it up between their faces, slowly turning it between his fingers to let it catch the starlight. "When your mother told you to be strong, it was her way of telling you to be happy. They sacrificed themselves because they loved you so much, and when you love someone, you want them to be happy, no matter what." A new tear leaked from his eye, different from those that came before, reflecting the black curve of the bear claw. "When she asked you to make that promise, she wasn't asking you to lock yourself away. She was asking you to survive, to live, to be happy. I'm sure that was the most important thing to them, because if their daughter could be happy, then they would be happy, no matter what."
Nilia moved her hand over his, so that they were holding the claw together, their fingers intertwined. "Are you saying that..." Her voice cracked, and she let it. "If I can be happy, then... then I won't have broken my promise?"
"Yes." He kissed her fingers just as the tear broke free. It travelled down the side of his muzzle and came to rest against the back of her hand. It was warm.
"But..." Nilia could feel her own tears start to well up, but these felt different, too. They didn't feel shameful, they didn't feel filthy, and none of her old tricks seemed to halt them. "But if I hadn't cried... If I had been strong..." They flowed down her face in twin streams, blurring the world into shards of black shadows and broken lines of light. "If I hadn't killed them..."
"You didn't kill them, Nilia. They loved you more than anything. That's why they did what they did. Not because you were weak, not because you cried, but because they loved you and you loved them. That's all there is to it."
If her tears were born out of love, did that mean they were the same as everyone else's? Did that mean they weren't poisonous?
He reached up and felt the moisture on her cheeks, the warm, wet lines her tears had carved into her fur. "People cry out of pain or joy," Mateo said. "Where do these come from?"
Nilia took his hand and pressed it more firmly against her cheek, liking the way the soft pads of his palm felt against her hot, tired face.
There were so many different kinds of strength in this world. An image of Ander flashed through her mind, standing in the centre of the village, soaked in blood, with fire blazing at his back and hundreds of evil shadows dancing in the dark, embers swirling on the wind like demons... and a single tear, running down his face, cutting a clean line through the red. The strength to be different.
Hezzi's face came next. She could see him so clearly, smiling from ear to ear even though his whole life was crumbling around him. Surrounded by death and despair and agonizing pain, he never gave up. He kept on fighting, and he did it with a smile on his face and a tear in his eye. The strength to hope.
Danado, kneeling in the snow, consumed by hatred, holding a knife in his hands covered in the blood of his sister. So much anger, so much grief and sorrow. She saw him raise the knife against the pain, against the cause of all his anguish, but instead of plunging it into the monster's heart, he simply threw it away, tears streaming from his eyes. The strength to forgive.
She saw her parents, smiling and laughing as they brushed the dirt and twigs out of her fur, teasing her by making up all kinds of silly names. She saw them wipe the tears form their eyes, felt their arms around her skinny shoulders. The strength to love.
Could happiness also be a kind of strength? Could she be strong by being happy? Could she keep her promise?
Could she?
"Nilia?"
She opened her eyes and saw Mateo's face. He was a perfect stranger to her, and yet she felt like he knew her better than she knew herself. He was annoying and loud and far too emotional, but... maybe she could stand having a bit of an annoyance in her life. Maybe she could do with a bit of noise. Maybe she _needed_a bit of emotion. Maybe...
"I want to keep my promise, Mateo. I want to be happy, but I don't know if I can do it myself." She ran her thumb across his fingers, slowly, feeling every rise and fall. "Will you help me?"
"I will do anything."
She leaned in and pressed her lips against his, softly, delicately. This wasn't like the animalistic pawing she had done before, barely in control of her own actions, just desperately trying to keep herself from exploding. This was a waking decision, one that made her feel oddly self-conscious, almost embarrassed. Her heart fluttered in her chest and her breath caught in her throat like she'd just jumped into a pool of freezing water, and by the Cora did it feel good.
She pushed him down on the floor, and without much surprise, she saw that they had ended up in the small circle of pale blue moonlight again, the exact same spot where she had almost killed him, the same spot she had cried her first tears since the night her parents saved her life, the same spot Mateo had caught her tears and cried them for her.
"Hey," he reached up and lightly brushed a tangle of hair from her face. "You've got another itch that needs scratching?"
Nilia smiled and shook her head. "No. I want to make love."
Mateo smiled back. "If it'll make you happy..."
The final tear of the night ran down her face, but Nilia didn't mind. There are only two types of tears, and that one was not born out of pain.
It was born out of joy.
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