Page 157

Emerie couldn’t help averting her gaze, wanting to look anywhere but at the same woman who suddenly felt three times her size. How could someone tower over her from so many inches below?

“I don’t want to,” she grumbled.

If she let it all out, said it all, Emerie wondered how she was supposed to stuff it all back inside and hide it. She wondered how she was supposed to ignore it.

Mayumi snorted a laugh. “Coward.”

“Excuse me?” Emerie gasped, turning to her.

“I’m not the kind of person to be gentle with another. I have a very low tolerance for human beings in general, which is why I’m with a Duskwalker in the first place. So, Emerie, I’m not going to hold back the truth from you, just as I wouldn’t for anyone else.” Then she raised her arm to shrug, her chin lifting. “You’re so afraid of your own damn feelings that you can’t even talk about them. If that isn’t cowardice, then I don’t know what is.”

Emerie knew what she was doing. She’d asked nicely, and Emerie had rejected it. Now, Mayumi was trying a different tactic to get her to open up, and to her dismay, it worked.

And by the fact that the woman’s cool expression never changed, she expected the outburst before it even began.

“Fine? You want to know the damn truth?” Emerie bit out. “Yes, I’m jealous of you and your family because I’m infertile and can’t have my own. Do I want you to stop being yourself? No, not at all. However, it does hurt, and it just makes me regret what I did, even if it is what brought me here today.”

She took in a deep breath, and let the rest freely flow.

“All I wanted was five damn minutes to take a fucking breath. That’s all I wanted. To collect myself and be alone so I could piece together my thoughts. Yet, whenever I try to do so, Ingram follows me, or you do. I feel suffocated.”

Then, tears did well, and no amount of teeth gritting or willpower seemed to stop them.

A dam of them, and rambling words, had broken.

“And he keeps looking at me expectantly, and I want him to stop because I can’t do any of this for him. I like him, Mayumi. I can already feel it growing inside me, but I’m not going to be his bride. I’m worried me being here with him is going to make him start wanting that from me, and I’m scared of how that’s going to make me feel. I’m scared of hurting his feelings, or that he’ll find a way to convince me otherwise because he’s so sweet and caring and it just makes me want to give him the world. But, if he wants his own kids, then he needs to go find someone else and stop wrapping his damn tail around my ankle like he doesn’t want to let me go.”

“You could talk to him about it,” Mayumi cut in. “Faunus has the desire to make life, but Magnar is less inclined to do so after having one.”

“I don’t want to explain it to him,” Emerie admitted. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed or not, but Faunus and Ingram aren’t on the same humanity scale. Half of what I explain to him slips through the cracks, and I have to say it in different ways for him to get the basics. This is a really sore and tender spot for me, and I just don’t know how I’m going to do that without bursting into tears. He seems to think that if he wills things, it will come true. I’ve already tried to explain to him that Aleron can’t be magically resurrected to life, but he won’t accept it. If he manages to convince me to be his bride, and he pushes the desire for kids onto me, when nothing he does will change it, I think he’ll crumble me from the inside. I can’t be his bride if he wants it, because it’ll mean I’m not good enough, will never be good enough, and he will eventually regret tying himself to me.”

Mayumi’s mouth pulled to one side in uncertainty, as her features softened for Emerie. “Do... you want me and Faunus to try talking to him about it?”

“Oh god, fuck no,” Emerie groaned while covering her face. “I know it’s really selfish of me, but I... I don’t want him to change because of this. I feel like he is smothering me in his affection, and yet I crave it so damn much that I wish he would pull me into his arms and squeeze me until I disappear into dust. What if you tell him and he comes to resent me? I already feel like an outsider, and I just... I don’t think I could bear a second of being here if he wasn’t there to make it... better.”

She pulled her hands from her face so she could look down at them beseechingly.

“I don’t think I could handle it if he suddenly started to ignore me. Just thinking of it hurts. I think I’d run off into the Veil to escape and hope I didn’t die along the way.”

Somehow, Mayumi’s silence and lack of comforting reach was... soothing. It was exactly what she needed right now. Someone to just shut up and listen as she vented, someone to not pull her in for a sympathetic hug and coddle her like she was a child.

She had big girl problems. They weren’t easily solved or fixed with words or actions. They didn’t just disappear.

They were real, and valid, and unchangeable.

All that could be dealt with was how Emerie reacted to them, and how she outwardly showed herself. She couldn’t suddenly grow a second womb, but she’d always been hoping that someone would love her.

Not because they had to, regardless of it, but because she meant so much to them that it didn’t matter at all. She wondered if that love would be even more pure because it was utterly about her and them, with no expectations of adding to it.

Even if she made this choice, she knew in her heart she deserved unconditional love untainted by guilt just as much as anyone else.

She was just waiting for someone to give it to her.

She wanted it to be Ingram. She was too afraid of learning the ugly truth, and would rather live in a fantasy just a little while longer.

There’s a chance I could die when we fight against the Demon King. Is... is it wrong of me to want to hide it in case I do?

There was no promise of more, from either of them. If Ingram decided he wanted to ask her for her soul, she would tell him the truth because he needed to know. That it was the reason she couldn’t just come out and give it to him.