#Byleth wouldn't mind staring off into the stars and completely disassociating while Helen gives a spiel about something

[paraloguesofash]

Weaving her fingers together, the former professor lifts her elbows onto the table, resting her chin on her hands. "I must admit, I am. . . not the best choice to debate one's emotional turmoil with, but. . ."

". . .Even I understand, and will counsel as such; keeping your thoughts, your feelings, contained and hidden away within yourself only ever results in further turmoil."

"Nothing will come of keeping yourself hidden. If you truly wish for others to see through you, just as I do; then you must step out of the dark." Even if those steps are little-by-little, or far enough to jump a chasm, it will be progress.

Though Byleth’s assessment was correct, it didn’t require a particularly great leap of logic to reach; it was readily apparent that the marchioness wasn’t easily given over to things like sentiment or emotion — and yet. And yet, now that she had begun… Setting down her own teacup in its accompanying saucer — perhaps less gently than warranted, given the ever-so-slight tremble that had begun at her fingertips, but still with some of the care she gave to all things she said and did — Helen reached out with her other hand, laying one gloved fingertip on the gift in question. For a long moment, acid green held mint in silence, before the taller woman spoke again.

"I've told you before, I don't consider having tea with you a waste of time, so I won't spend either of ours by pointlessly prevaricating with you." What was she saying? Worse still — what was she doing? For once in her life, Helen didn't have an answer to that, having thrown caution to the wind now that the first treacherous words had escaped her mouth. Five years — no. Twenty-five years of biting her tongue had led her here; internally drowning in misery, externally failing at what she had sworn to always do; failing to support and protect her Lady to the best of her ability. Failing to prepare the bloody path because she couldn't — wouldn't spare anything for herself.

Tapping the index finger in contact with the hairclip to illustrate her point, softly even despite the loosening of her tongue, the dark mage continued. "This proves to me that you have seen through my every facade, picked apart each and every single moment of artifice that I have constructed throughout my life to hide the truth from the world. That you see me as I truly am, in spite of everything I have done to prevent such an occurrence." To throw my lot in with you is inconceivable, but if I had two lives to give... In the interest of that trust which had grown between them, still so new and fragile, almost wholly different from the devotion she gladly gave her Lady...

"You see the female self I hide — and I am unable to respond to that."