And so often it's the little things that set me off, that's the rub. Not big things, big things I can so easily forgive, it's the little details. Little things.

I'm so used to giving orders to my boys. Sometimes I slip, I forget that I'm not talking to Kadin or Caleb, that I'm talking to someone I don't own, exactly. And an order slips out. And even though I know that really, they shouldn't have to obey, they don't have to obey, sometimes something in my head just clicks and if they don't obey, it hurts. There's that little shred of control that feels like it's just been torn away. It leaves me trembling. Physically, literally, trembling. My hands shake for a minute. I have to close my eyes, have to remind myself to breath, that there's no reason to be frightened.

And then, once the fear fades, anger rushes in to take its place, and anger is so much harder to get rid of. It floods me, leaves me to drown in itself, I claw my way to the surface enraged, furious at the person who would deny me such a simple thing, who would disobey...

...even when I know that it's foolish...

...and then my pride, my stability, my anger and my frustration, it all demands satisfaction. Something to make it ok again. Something to make me feel balanced and safe and happy again.

Tonight, that 'something' is a lot more than I have any right to ask, and I know that. I know that what I expect, what I demand, I shouldn't ask of anyone who doesn't belong to me, who doesn't already know the score, who doesn't already understand what it takes to keep me from the panic I am constantly on the edge of.

But I am asking it regardless. I am asking it because I keep believing that this person is someone I can trust, someone who could be mine, someone who might soothe the ache that lurks just behind my eyes and circles my wrists and tears at my heart when dawn is not yet here and the moon is riding high.

I asked, demanded, 45 hours. 45 hours to balance out the 45 minutes of mistake and denial. Not a fair trade, not at all, and I would be the first to point this out. It's not fair. It's not nice. It's not kind or reasonable or rational or anything else.

But it IS what I require.

45 hours to convince me to forgive and forget. 45 hours to convince me that I should speak to him. 45 hours in which I will be trying again to convince Sieia-To of the same thing, that I should speak to him, that he is not the threat he seems, that the hurt he causes is accidental and that yes, he really will make it better, he'll make up for it, he will...

*sighs softly*

I would give quite a lot to have Kadin here. The boy explains this so much better than I do. He's got the emotional distance from it that I do not, and he's got words that match my own. He knows how to teach what I can't find words for, how to express what I keep bottled up. He explains.

This... yeah. An explanation, of sorts. Not a to-be-deleted explanation, either.

Not a justification.

Not a rationalization.

I am not just. I am not rational. I am me, and that is a far cry from either of those.

*shrugs*

Take me as I am.