"You also ought not demand it from yourself," he adds, very gently, smiling a little. "Any more than you would demand for a rose to bloom in the middle of winter. And you did help him, when you were brave enough to call me right away instead of trying to hide what had happened."
He gives her hands a little extra squeeze.
"You were upset, angry, thinking of painful times, but you only meant to help him to his room. Then what happened?"
She swallows hard. "He walked past me," she starts out. "I smelled the alcohol on his breath. He kept walking and...and I wanted to hurt him. So I shoved him."
"Malo played violin," she reminds him softly. "I heard it when I was in the cellar, too. During my experiments. I read a newspaper clipping of - the concert. And I could hear the violins even though I couldn't remember."
"I don't know," she admits. Love and hate felt so similar for so long. She felt both for her father, knew what that emotion was, all squeezed up in her heart and chest. She felt the same for her suitors, terrible as they were. Basile made her entire chest seize in fear sometimes, but he was so gentle in moments. Aloïs' indifference made her angry, but he would say such sweet things. Malo was intense and driven, but the drink made him sloppy and hurtful.
"Talk to me about what you were feeling?" Clearly she has a lot of thoughts she's working through. "You don't have to say it all...correctly. But I think it will be good, finding ways to say it."
She huffs, feeling overwhelmed with the thought of it. Words are easy for her, but this seems insurmountable. Instead, she borrows words, like the poet she is.
"'Indeed indeed, I cannot tell, Though I ponder on it well, Which were easier to state, All my love or all my hate.'"
She sighs. "It is both. I could not have one without the other. I could not hate without love or love without hate. They are so close, the two feelings. The intensity of them feels the same to me."
"Understandable," Jedao says dryly; he's known a few like that.
"But I do think it's still...different. You don't just want Sokie to make you happy. You want Sokie to be happy, even if sometimes you also want her to stop doing the frustrating things. And that's a very different kind of love than you had with your suitors, or they with you, I think."
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She feels a strange need to defend him against everyone, even herself.
"I want to help when I can."
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He gives her hands a little extra squeeze.
"You were upset, angry, thinking of painful times, but you only meant to help him to his room. Then what happened?"
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He's spent some time looking into the workings of memory, even though normal neuroanatomy probably doesn't even apply to him.
"You said you wanted to hurt him. You were thinking of Malo, in that moment, or both of them?"
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She twists her hands in his again.
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Loving him doesn't preclude it.
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She loved them all. Maybe she hated them, too.
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"'Indeed indeed, I cannot tell,
Though I ponder on it well,
Which were easier to state,
All my love or all my hate.'"
She sighs. "It is both. I could not have one without the other. I could not hate without love or love without hate. They are so close, the two feelings. The intensity of them feels the same to me."
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"I...yes, I can."
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"You don't want to hurt John, or Max, or Fitz, or Sokie, you said."
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"Well...sometimes I do want to hurt Sokie. When she is so deeply, deeply frustrating."
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"But I do think it's still...different. You don't just want Sokie to make you happy. You want Sokie to be happy, even if sometimes you also want her to stop doing the frustrating things. And that's a very different kind of love than you had with your suitors, or they with you, I think."
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"I want them all to be happy."