#I kinda wish I knew how to acquire it for limited usage

[frostedrage]

Fucking Honesty...

Exhilarating described it aptly.

Not unfamiliar, that surge of power, the rush of spellcasting, of mastering new knowledge, of pitting herself against the intangible fabric of the universe and forcing it to obey. But still thrilling. Still ecstasy in so very many ways. 

And losing herself in it kept her busy. Kept her mind preoccupied, away from thoughts that had chased themselves ragged through her mind, leaving her unable to sleep, angry and with no one handy to take such rage out upon. Of all the times for Seifer to not be readily at hand...

Knowing full well that ignoring the issue would resolve nothing, Anna set out to do precisely that. Ignore it. Absolutely ignore it with all the inflexible willpower she’d developed over years of necromancy, opposition and hatred. When she put her mind to something, nothing had yet stopped her. This couldn’t possibly be different, and so Anna had fled to the depths of Coerthas to hide from her own thoughts in a wild bloody rush of spellslinging and stabbing. 

With blood freezing on her ankles, snow clumped in her hair, the rush of aether flowing through her veins, Anna kept the thoughts at a comfortable distance. Very good at pretense, she acted as if her mind wasn’t circling back to the situation with Seifer, to their shared history, to the frightening, undefined future. 

And realizing she’d fallen into pretending she wasn’t thinking about what she was thinking about, Anna snarled, blew a nearby tree into burning splinters and stalked back to the small makeshift camp she’d tossed together earlier. A loose stump with a rough cushion, a small fire ready to be lit, a heap of blankets--although Anna missed the luxuries she’d once demanded, she found such things to be... less of a priority than they had been. 

Swathed in heavy wool, the fire burning at her feet, Anna set her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands and fixed her eyes on the wavering flames. 

All right. Let’s think about it. 

Problems always had simple solutions, once they’d been broken down to the essentials. The same process surely worked for relationship problems, and oh how she grimaced at even thinking such a thing. 

Gods, they’d never had “problems” before. They’d just done what they were going to do, regardless of what anyone said, even each other. 

...which, of course, was the thing which had caused... problems... 

Gods damn it all. 

Anna gritted her teeth. Fucking honesty. Never again would she engage in such a stupid waste of time, sitting and sorting out feelings and relationships and... Ugh. She loathed it. And that loathing was the greatest assistant. She hated what she had to do so very much that Anna’s determination buckled down to ensure it only had to be done once. 

Essentials. First step--break the problem down into the essentials. All right. The essential issue, as far as she could see, was that neither she nor Seifer had ever been happy together. And the complication to that issue was, quite frankly, that she would kill him before giving him up. 

Oh, she knew if he stated baldly that he wanted another and left, she’d allow it. And Anna would even give him a brief period before returning to simply kill him. For all that she occasionally played with the idea of letting him go, Anna didn’t actually believe it would happen. Nor, it seemed, did Seifer have any inclination to give her up. 

So. They weren’t happy, but they wanted each other. 

All right, now what? 

Teeth grinding together, Anna dug her claws into her palms, sitting upright and staring at the fire with all her might. As breaking the problem down that far didn’t immediately present a solution, she clearly hadn’t reached the essentials. Time to push further. Gods, why was this so hard? Anna knew she had intellect, will and wit; all three coming together had always brought her success in the past. And none of it had been this gods damned difficult. 

An impatient puff of air blew a few strands of her shimmering hair from her downy cheek; she settled her elbows on her knees, plopped her chin back onto her palms and fixed her gaze on the fire. 

Essentials. Bare essentials. If neither of them had been happy, there had to be a why behind that. Sex had never been a problem; their proclivities matched perfectly, as did their ferocity and strength of desire. Morals--or the lack thereof--never caused an issue; they saw eye-to-eye on many points and hadn’t argued over whether what the other did was wrong. Only inconvenient. Ambition... They shared it. Tastes, they also shared, albeit she loved mint and he didn’t.

Anna blinked. Her brow furrowed. 

What the fuck? They should’ve been perfectly happy. Both of them even sought out reasons to fight with each other because neither of them enjoyed bland, lifeless conversations. And those fights often ended in bed, with each well satisfied and often chatting easily or laughing. 

What was missing then?

Unused to grappling with problems that couldn’t be immediately solved with the application of magical force, Anna scowled at the fire. Perhaps she was overthinking the entire thing. They’d gotten along just fine in the past, indiscretions and arguments aside. And hadn’t she been remarkably generous? Two lovers. Not one, but two she had promised he could have. Considering Seifer’s tendency to wander, that allowance of such in her statement of what their marriage would be had merit. And didn’t limit him to only the same two. If he wished to drop one and find a new lover, Anna would only complain if he tried keeping more than two at once. 

Who could possibly ask for more than that? Why had he been so damnably insistent that i-

Anna frowned, her ears sagging back against her hair. Closing her eyes, she thought hard, dredging up his face when she’d turned to look at him after stating her terms. What had been on his face? What had it been? Disappointment? If he thought she’d let him run loose without so much as a say in the matter...

Teeth worried at her lower lip. She thought harder, wishing this was simply a matter of killing enough people. Not disappointment, exactly, but... something similar. And Anna scoffed. Had he imagined she’d do the same thing all over again? Fighting against his damnable nature that sent him chasing after any woman that caught his eye? 

...not... that he’d done much of that during their marriage. 

Anna frowned. 

Now that she actually thought about it, the only lover Seifer had taken had been Narasen, and even that had been after she’d broken her own demands by bedding Kona. He’d had opportunity, certainly, but... 

Was it... possible that Seifer could manage commitment...? Anna’d considered it, briefly, when they’d first become lovers, but expecting too much of him felt like putting a noose about her neck. She hadn’t looked for more than another bond between them, strengthening those already present; something else to share. If he’d been looking for something else...

Anna’s jaw clenched; her eyes sparked with a sudden, sharp fury. 

“Gods damned idiot if you wanted something more why the fuck didn’t you say so?!”

Her abrupt, furious shriek brought a drift of snow down onto her shoulders. The icy powder chilling her neck did nothing to cool Anna’s temper, and the fire gusted up, flaring brightly in sympathy. 

How dare that bastard make her do all this work? Where the fuck did Seifer get off acting mopey and morose after years of not saying a single fucking word to her? If he’d wanted a lover and a wife instead of a good fuck and a partner in crime, he gods damned well should’ve said so. 

And he hadn’t even offered being faithful...! Made her demand it, suspect it wouldn’t last, break it herself...! The ass.

Knuckles white, Anna threw her blankets off and snatched her staff from where it leaned against the cliff wall. The need to absolutely murder something had taken over; she wouldn’t be able to think straight until surrounded by corpses and coated in the ash they gave off after being incinerated. 

And once she had calmed a bit, she would clean up and then go throttle him.