[open] harpstring moon catch-all

[snowslip]

Who: Marianne and you!
Where: Around Aldrip
What: Catch-all log
Warnings: N/A


i.

[ Though Marianne has made her life in Aldrip for many moons now, the remodeling of town has her losing her way. You might run into her doubling back around, entering an establishment only to quickly excuse herself, or stumbling into shadier alleys looking terribly out of place for a woman of the cloth. ]

Excuse me— where is this?

[ Apart from running her usual errands, she can also be found putting up recruitment posters around town for the Artzenritter healer troop. Come take a look? Or perhaps lend a hand at graphic design, technology is a struggle. ]

ii.

[ The memories of the other Aldrip linger, an alternate life where she wasn't plagued by her Crest and she held hope and confidence in herself that she never knew she could. On one sleepless night, she writes an anonymous message to the network after much fiddling with the new charms. ]

I still feel troubled by the memories of the other life we lived. Is it the same for anyone else?

[ If you know her already, she may feel comfortable enough to confess in person. ]

Some days, I feel like I don't know which of my memories to trust.

[ ooc: Her usual haunts are the Willow Clinic where she'll be trying to ease pollen symptoms this month and Astralin's farm and the surrounding meadows where she can be found tending to chocobos and her horse Dorte. Feel free to PM or ping me at ahlyo for a custom starter! ]

Comments

[snowslip]

[ Right... Ethlyn would have recalled the terrible losses she had endured. It puts Marianne's own troubles into perspective. As much as her Crest pained her, surely it's nothing next to the pain of losing your family to war. If Marianne were in her shoes, she wonders if she could have accepted the reality shown to her. ]

What do you do when the truth is painful? How do you go on?

[baldrshand]

[Isn't that the question.]

You can try to ignore it, but that only lasts so long before it catches up to you. [She learned that in the desert.] You talk about it... try to understand who you were then and who you are now.

To accept that there's nothing you can do to change the past, and that the only choice you have is to go on.

[snowslip]

[ Marianne mulls over her words. There's wisdom and determination behind it that's so very like Ethyln. ]

...You may be right. My other self was a little too good at ignoring inconvenient truths.

[ That's one thing she has over the more confident Marianne, she realizes now. ]

Maybe it's wrong of me to think of myself as her shadow. I'm luckier in some ways. I have you as my friend to remind me of what's real. She wasn't so fortunate.

[ The other Marianne hadn't been close to Ethlyn. She had been at odds with Claude. In place of her closest friends she had placed her trust in a cult of personality. When put like that, how can she want anything but the life she has now? ]

[baldrshand]

...Yes. [Ethlyn smiles a little. Her situation wasn't exactly the same as Marianne's, in the false life, but she can feel some sympathy with it. Ethlyn the Busybody Widow wasn't very interested in looking inwards at her pain, either.] The other me kept trying to do anything and everything to avoid knowing something that would make her unhappy.

Marianne, you are a thoughtful, kind, and conscientious person. It only takes a few minutes of knowing you to see that you're nothing like a shadow... and your people will be lucky to have you when it is time for you to take your father's place.

And I'm lucky to have you as a friend, too.

[snowslip]

Thank you, Ethlyn. I-I'm grateful.

[ Marianne feels herself tearing up, her voice choking up with emotion with how moved she is by Ethlyn's words. She turns aside to try to wipe her tears away shyly. They're happy tears, gratitude for having found a friend in Ethlyn who has supported her through the worst of times and comfort in knowing she is not alone in her struggles. ]

I've decided. I want the present I live in and the memories I have even if they're painful. If something happens again to make us forget, we can remind each other.