[FIN] Having Some Words

[Tori Honoo]

She shook her head, then leaned back against the wall again, looking anywhere but Sera's face. "I messed up any chance of friendship I had between Luke and I," she told her weakly. "I read him Asch's letter...thinking it would be better to have someone there with him than for him to read it alone. I shouldn't have even been in there with him, at all. But what's done is done, I can't take it back, and I am sorry."

Her will betrayed her as the tears fell, her hands unmoving to wipe them away. She deserved this humiliation after what she had done to Luke. What she had done to all of them.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

While Dove pointedly avoided her gaze, Sera's eyes remained locked on the other girl's face as she listened to her words. She appeared unmoved by the tears as they fell from the model's face, her arms still folded over her chest as she stood near her Rapidash, and remained silent for a few moments after Dove finished speaking.

"Alright," she said smoothly, and instead of yielding, she asked, "what else?"  

[Tori Honoo]

She took a deep breath, ignoring Lovey as she rubbed at her leg, asking to be lifted so she could attempt to comfort her.

"He panicked, and I.... I didn't know what to do. He curled up and looked like he might go into a fit, so I hit a nurse call button and they showed up and tried to help, but... they ended up using a sedative, I think...I don't know what happened after that," she told her, the strength slowly returning as she resolved to let herself be put on display. "They asked me to leave, and the next time I had finally worked out the courage to actually go back to talk with him, he had already been discharged and left for Grande Ile. ...I guess it was all for the best, though, that I didn't see him then."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Oh good, she was actually finally starting to get it. Sera nodded once at the girl's words, comparing them against what she'd heard and agreeing that, yes, that probably would've been a bad time. "Okay, so why did you apologize?" She asked, then figured Dove wouldn't understand the question because she had yet to understand her previous ones, so she elaborated, "What part of what happened at the hospital did you apologize for, exactly?"  

[Tori Honoo]

Her brow furrowed, and she stayed silent for a few minutes, unsure why Sera wanted to prolong this. "All of it...How could I not apologize?" she said softly, finally unable to take the tears sliding over her cheeks. She lightly wiped them away with the tips of her fingers. "I told you, I shouldn't have been there in the first place. The letter was absolutely none of my business, and I didn't know how to handle someone that upset."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"Oh good," she said, eyebrows raising and her tone nothing but sarcasm, "you're learning. Alright then," she unfolded her arms to clap her hands together once, "so then you should be able to compare the two and figure out how else you ******** up." And since she had managed to realize at least some of her mistakes, that indicated to Sera that she needn't elaborate on this request as she had for previous ones.  

[Tori Honoo]

Dove stared at the younger girl, the words settling in the silence between them as she thought.

"Why are you doing this? What do you want from me, Sera?" she asked softly, pulling her hair over her shoulder, then rubbing the back of her neck before she crossed her arms across her middle. "I already said I wouldn't try again..."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"That doesn't matter right now," she said with a shake of her head, "what matters is the fact I don't think you understand s**t. Now, can you compare the two and tell me the differences in what you said and did? Can you tell me what you did wrong in both?"  

[Tori Honoo]

"Why do you care?" she asked before it even registered fully with her. Sera had never really come across as someone who would actually care about how someone like her would react to certain situations. Perhaps she was just that nosy.

"The first time, I just read the letter and failed to keep him calm. The second, I apologized and things spun out of control. I did give him a hug, but that didn't work. I tried to keep him calm and completely and utterly failed. I know that, and I don't need you to rub it in." She closed her eyes and tightened her hold around her middle, her voice cracking. "Do you really want a list, because I think we both know I just shouldn't have tried."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"I care because Luke is one of my best friends," the brunette responded heatedly, breaking her thus-far neutral expression to aim a glare at Dove. "Since you don't seem to really get it, let me see if I can try to explain it to you. Don't trouble yourself - I'll make a list for you. And just so you're not confused, I'm not rubbing it in - I'm trying to educate you in case you ever get the idea to try and offer emotional support to anyone else, you won't royally ******** up like you did with one of my best friends."

The girl held up one fist and raised a finger from her opposite hand to tick off everything she listed thereafter, "Your first mistake was seeing that letter and not even asking if he even wanted you to read it to him - and you're right, that was none of your business. Your second was not doing s**t to try and calm him down yourself and instead you just called a nurse." So much for being a friend. "Your third was the fact you completely left out that last one when you talked to Rosie so when she did find out about it, it greatly upset her. Your fourth was when you apologized, though I still don't know exactly what you said, but whatever you said you did it in such a way that it made him relive everything he went through the past month and it caused him to blame himself and drive him to the point of asking you to kill him. Your fifth mistake was the fact you could not tell that he was obviously uncomfortable because you kept trying to touch him or hug him - he didn't like it and told me himself how uncomfortable you made him feel because of it, and I'm pretty damn sure he acted like it, but you clearly didn't get the message." With all five fingers out now on her original hand, she switched to the other hand and started there. "Your sixth mistake when trying to help was not realizing that your helping was actually hurting. You just made him feel worse and instead of realizing that and stopping, you just kept going until freakin' Yuri got there and made you stop. Your seventh mistake was the fact you didn't try to help him at the hospital, yet at the park it sounded to me like you were trying so hard to help him that you were also trying to make up for all of the help you didn't try to give him at the hospital."

Sera finally finished and held up all seven fingers and raised her eyebrows over half-lidded eyes, giving Dove a meaningful look. "Seven things. At least seven mistakes you made. Hell, I'm probably missing some that I don't even know about." She paused briefly to allow Dove time to process her words thus far, but not long. "Did you realize any of these yourself? Don't tell me yes unless you really, actually realized any of them, because from what you told me before now, it sure as hell sounds like you barely realized even one, maybe two. You can call this 'rubbing it in' if you want, but I hope at least the next time you have to try and offer emotional support to somebody, you at least learn from everything that happened and what I'm telling you, and that you'll realize when you've gone past helping and straight on into solidly not helping."

"What I am for sure rubbing in, though," she added, her tones hardening along with a glare aimed at Dove, lowering a fist to her hip and pointing straight at Dove with a single finger, "is that you stay away from Luke. If he approaches you, fine; but don't try to help him until you understand how to help people without inadvertently hurting them, and do not touch him. At all."

Sera paused long enough to straighten up and fold her arms over her chest again, then added coolly, "Is that clear?"  

[Tori Honoo]

Dove simply accepted everything the girl said, already having listed every single one of her mistakes in her head a thousand times before. After a moment, she lifted her eyes to the girl, her eyes empty, dead, and defeated. "Crystal clear..." she said weakly, before sinking down into the grass again, making absolutely no other movements.

She had already realized the mistakes she had made...

She had already said she would never approach Luke again...  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Seraphine studied her critically as she responded and sank down into the grass, and shifted her weight to her other hip as she tried to figure out if Dove did, indeed, understand. She said she did, but... Honestly, she wasn't quite sure. She had made her point though, so she simply replied with a single word, "Good."

That said, she moved Luna over to a bench that she could stand on to enable her to push herself up onto the Rapidash's back, side-saddle, and patted the fire-type's neck. "I hope it is," she offered the other girl in parting, and although her tones were not hateful, they weren't exactly friendly, either. That said, she said a quiet word to Luna, who turned and cantered off again in her smooth gait.  

[Tori Honoo]

Dove said nothing as Sera left. Instead, she simply pressed her forehead to her knees and drew deep breaths, the last of her tears drying up.

Not here. Not in public.
Not again.