#hes so silly and kind and knowledgable and a bright spot in my life leo my best friend leo <3 he knows soo much about plants!!

[finn-shitposts]

I finally bit the bullet and quit my joooob !!! Now im gonna actually have time to rest and catch up on owed art and just fucjin sleep for 3 weeks

(And then scramble to find a job but thars for future me to worry abour)

[zahra-kha]

Dear Diary 36

I’ve written in you less and less of late. This makes for less of a chronicle of my life if I don’t write in you diligently doesn’t it? Well, to be honest, I don’t feel like I need to remember every detail of my life. Especially with everything that’s been going on lately.

However, not all of it has been dark spots. Some of it has been grey, some of it has been bright. I’ve been wading myself through uncharted territory and I can’t say I’ve always made the best or correct decisions but I’m also not perfect. 

I wrote in my previous entry that I didn’t know what I was supposed to do now that my troupe was...the way it was. I didn’t know what my purpose was here in Eorzea. If I’m honest with myself, I’m still not entirely sure. I’m frightened, nervous, and there are times when I feel alone. The people who I thought were my support - it’s a mystery if they ever really cared about me (which I’ll get into in a bit) - turned out to be a source of immense pain. I’m trying to recover from that but I wish I could explain to people how difficult that is. How hard it is to trust again when family betrays you.

There’s insecurities there that weren’t before. When I spoke to Sid, I initially told him that it probably wouldn’t make a difference if I left to return home, because everyone had their lives and everyone would eventually move on with their lives. I said that, but I didn’t really mean that. To be honest, I was just scared. It’s easier to leave than to be abandoned, easier to walk away than learn later you were never wanted or needed. Easier to pull away than get rejected.

But my whole life I’ve been running. I walk forward so I can run from something that’s been chasing me. I felt like this time if I moved forward, without looking back on what I’d gained, I’d lose something really precious. And I felt like something in me would break and never recover.

I spoke with Sid for a while at the Bojza camp - it was helpful. I wasn’t looking for answers, I don’t think I was. Maybe just some clarity from my chaotic thoughts. It was easy to talk to him. He was kind and patient with me as I rambled. He didn’t try to push me in any direction, and I was grateful. I wanted to know a bit more about him, I felt maybe he understood a bit of what I was feeling. I thought maybe if I understood him, it’d help guide me to a decision. Was that selfish? Writing that down, it almost sounds as if I was using his feelings and experiences. But I also genuinely wanted to know more about him. I think he’s an interesting person that carries a profound sadness, but it also seems he’s managed to find happiness and a sense of purpose. 

That’s what I want, a sense of purpose again. Sid wondered if maybe what I’m searching for is what I lost - my family. I conceded that maybe that was it. But I’m just so hesitant in calling another group family again after what happened. I spent half my life with those people, and none of it was real. I loved them, but I was just a means to an end for them.

It would break me, shatter me beyond repair, if I fell into that trap again with everyone currently in my life.

I want to, I so badly want to believe and trust in them. They’ve been there for me, they’ve helped me, healed me. Cared for me during this whole ordeal. Hells, they have bled for my sake. And of course, I have not hesitated to jump into the fires for them as well. But that’s completely different from fully giving my heart. I just...can’t. I’m trying, but every time it’s like something cold and hard grabs hold of my throat and claws down, screaming I’m a fool. Fear consumes me, and I feel as if I’m drowning.

For now, I’m just content to be here. Sid helped me organize my thoughts and realize my path lies here. I want to heal here, and be around the friends who have shown me care. I want to relearn how to believe in true bonds again. I want to walk forward and see where the road takes me, and I don’t want to be afraid - I don’t want to do it alone.

That’s what I’ve decided.

I managed to tell Quin (Leo?) a bit of this, I hope I didn’t worry him too much. I was a bit under the weather when the truth came out, I’d been shot on the battlefield and was recovering - but it was a good talk. It’s amazing, when I first met Quin, I don’t think I had a good impression of him, and I don’t think he had any real impression of me. Now I think of him as a silly little brother. 

Speaking of, Quin and Erith got fake married! That was...interesting? I probably should have done more to stop it but it wasn’t official so I didn’t really see the harm. Uh, save for Erith putting Quin at shotgun point. I don’t know, I don’t really like getting between their dynamics because they have a really unique relationship but it’s quite clear they deeply care for one another. So I just go with their antics. Should I though? Am I enabling bad behavior?  [There’s a drawing of a dizzy Zahra along the margins]

I wonder if festivals bring out romance? There were quite a few couples seeking blessings and marriages, so I guess maybe they do? Erith was looking for a husband for Bernon so there was that. I didn’t really know how to feel about it. Not really lonely? Wistful, maybe? I can’t say I’m looking for a profound relationship, but I think having someone to laugh with and share small moments with would be nice.

Maybe...not quite the same as what Erith and Quin have. Being at shotgun point is frightening. I completely understand why Quin started drinking. Heavily.

I’m rambling, but my mind has been all over the place. I’m avoiding talking about what’s really going on in my head because I’m not sure if writing this down, reliving it, will be easy.

I’m talking about my confrontation with Sahrin.

I don’t know what I was expecting when I demanded answers from him. I think I was expecting him to explain why Sai did what she did. I was hoping he’d smile at me and tell me everything was a misunderstanding, or that they’d been acting on their own accord and he hadn’t know anything.

I didn’t mind Gail putting pressure on him - she understands what it means to be a leader, and how hard it can be to have people do things behind your back, and the heavy responsibility that leadership entails.

I also realize what I’d done to him - I appeared out of no where and threatened him into a meeting right after he’d seen everything he’d built up burned to the ground. Of course he was confused, of course he wanted answers. I’d given him nothing. I’m sure he tried to look into it on his own, but he likely didn’t get very far since he’d been gone so long deal with Armand and was unaware of all that’d been going on.

No one is omniscient, but I wasn’t entirely in a caring mood. People I had once cared about deeply had tried to kill me more than once - I was tired.

Father once told me that there are always two sides to a story, and what you know is always just a small part of a whole. He said it’s always good to know and understand the full picture of things, but never let that knowledge influence how the ending needs to be written. And if I can help it, I should always be the one holding the quill to those short chapters in my life.

Sahrin told us about Sai and Esila, and then he told us about the foundation of the troupe and what its original purpose had been. The first troupe they’d all been in - I knew they had worked for the government covertly, doing their bidding under the belief they were serving their nation. Even if it was unpleasant, someone has to do it.

Sahrin and the others felt the troupe wasn’t looking at the real threat - the Empire. And I suppose I can understand their fear. With the way the empire was expanding, the idea that Thavnair would have remained a free nation forever was questionable at best. The Empire wanted to be a world power, once they’d conquered all they’d truly desired, why not take Thavnair too?  Would we had really been able to stop them, if they had truly put their forces to it? 

"We’ll be on their list eventually.” was a legitimate fear. It was one I’d heard on the lips of some nobles and commoners growing up. Not everyone liked the Empire in Thavnair. Not everyone felt the arrangement we had was beneficial. For all the ones who welcomed them for business and trade, there were those who feared them. 

I guess Sahrin had been one of those people. He’d become frustrated with his troupe and decided to form his own. Except he couldn’t be normal about it, no. He took others who had anti-Imperial sentiment and they all decided they were going to bring in children to train and raise them - and by raise I mean brainwash - into perfect anti-Imperial fighting tools.

I cannot express the emotions I went through upon hearing that.

I mean, yes, it’s preferable to bring children into a troupe’s fold because it’s easier to train a dancer when they’re younger, more flexible, and their minds retain things easier, than to start them when they’re much older. I’m going to try and give them the benefit of the doubt and hope that’s what they - no, what Sahrin was thinking when he started this. I don’t want to think of Sahrin as a bad person. There’s just a part of me that refuses to do that.

But I can’t...forgive him for creating the troupe with those intentions. It really doesn’t matter that ‘he grew a conscious’ with me and changed his mind. Congratulations, I guess? Maybe one day when I’m not feeling so angry I’ll send him a cookie for deciding not to be quite the terrible person he could have been.

Okay. I’m feeling petty. And angry. And hurt. But his admission ripped the floor of my reality right out from under me. I admired him, looked up to him - I had wanted to be like him. I had wanted to grow up and eventually be a role model to others because of him. And then to learn all of that had been based on a foundation of lies - that I had initially been nothing more than a tool for his ambitions...

Even if he had changed his mind, clearly the others hadn’t, and that hurts. And he knew that. He’d known and I guess had been trying to change them. But you can’t change people who actively choose to hate - even if they feel their cause is righteous. There is a right way to go about change, and using - hurting - children is not it.

Sahrin helped us decipher some of the letters, and it honestly made a bit more sense when he put them into perspective. It looks like Esila really was trying to sell me out to some guy named ‘Darling’. I don’t know why he wanted me so badly, but apparently, Cecilia was getting traded to Sabe, and I was gonna get sold off in some auction had everything gone well. In exchange, I guess they were going to get their audience with Orhan and incriminate Sahrin. Sahrin guesses this was all to get a connection back to the old troupe.

They wanted a way back to the old troupe so they lied, cheated, and were even willing to kill to do it. The warmth, smiles, all of those good times we had were all fake.

I was at a loss of what to believe in. I felt like an idiot for falling for their schemes for so long. I should have seen it - hadn’t I grown up surrounded by scheming adults? I should have known better by now.

I told Sahrin I never wanted to see him again, and then after that the rest of the night was a bit of a blur. I know everyone came back to my apartment. I served them drinks and sandwiches. I wanted to make sure Quin was okay. Outside of that, I don’t remember much. They left and I remember taking Bitey and  Fènghuáng away. I still haven’t gone back to the kennel to pick them up. 

I went back to my apartment and I just...suddenly I hated everything about it. It reminded me of home, of my troupe -  and everything went white, then red. My heart felt heavy and my eyes burned. I think I screamed. I know I cried. And then I fled. I ran and ran and ran. Until my legs turned to rubber and my lungs screamed and I fell down...somewhere. I didn’t recognize the surroundings. I think I was around a lot of trees and sand. I just know the breeze felt good against my skin, and the grass was cool and comforting. 

I cried, an ugly, gulping, gut wrenching cry - until there wasn’t anything left. And then I sat back against the cliffs and stared up at the sky until the sun rose. I didn’t want to return to the apartment, so I didn’t.

And then the next day I went and dyed my hair black. I need to find some white clothing, to mark the passing of the troupe, my family, and for Esila. The Esila I knew and loved - not the one who wanted to trade me to I guess slavers. The woman I had known to be a good person.

I will mourn her death, because she had lived, and she had brought me joy, even if it had been made of lies.