#There's something that feels so right for ur characters to tell Juneau to grow a backbone

[vuldak-juneau]

END

Juneau made no argument about how wretched and rotten the witchers were, but she studied Elokian closely for a few moments. “What would you know about witchers?” she asked, figuring that a life on the sea meant a life safe from the unfeeling hunters known as witchers. She crossed her arms as he talked about the burning if Iskaldrik, and though she felt no love lost of the ruling class and fall of its governing body, she did mourn the expansive wilderness of the kingdom. It was wasted under a man like Orhan who turned it from a rich landscape to a wasteland of intimidation and fear. It wasn’t the land’s fault its ruler was so inept. She listened to his words carefully before asking, “How old are you?” He seemed young–looked like a man in his adulthood and acted like a one in early adulthood. For him to have passed centuries in Taravell was a surprise to her. “Hmm, probably an apt regret, I’d never heard of you before.” 

Why couldn’t she? Perhaps because a lifetime of being abandoned and beat down had convinced her that even wanting was more than she deserved, that she was worthy of nothing, not even goals or wishes. It frustrated her that she couldn't answer him, so she pretended the question was rhetorical as a means of self-preservation. But he showed her the mercy of breaking the silence first, and she viewed him from the corner of her eye as if he was speaking to a bad dog. “I’ll try.”

“Hey!” Her protest was immediate and she was slapping at his hand again as he patted her head again. She only huffed out another, grouchy breath and didn’t argue with him. Again, she’d learned it would be pointless. He saw things the way he wanted to. Juneau struggled to understand why almost everyone had seemed to care so much about her outcome, about their rejoining, except for the functional use of their escape. But they hadn’t needed her to escape; she was almost certain they could have left without her. Almost. They hadn’t tried, hadn’t tested that hypothesis. Even Elokian, who she had spoken to so directly and so harshly, who she would have expected to turn her back on her and toward the exit first. Perhaps that was why she lazily lifted her arms toward him and with her usual storm cloud overhead gave him perhaps the most half-assed hug in history. “Happy?” she asked, straightening back up and crossing her arms as if she were too cool for what had just happened. “Are you done with your lectures, or can I go now?”