words unspoken | ENDWALKER SPOILERS

[sunseeker]

It's the dead of the night, and M'ahina can't help but feel a certain restlessness. It seems the major problems are behind them, and though she knows something will eventually come up—it always does—this feels a degree more final than it normally does. Mayhap it's because they've all elected to travel different roads, a discussion to which she wasn't able to contribute much. She's never been the most politically savvy, and to add a voice of sentimentality to more well-reasoned arguments would do them all an injustice. And she's finding that the thought of continuing to adventure at her leisure is … easier? More comforting? Than she ever dared to dream.

Yet she cannot deny there's a certain weight there. A sort of wondering that, even with all the threads of their adventures neatly tied, perhaps they trimmed the excess off a little too neatly? That... maybe there are things left unsaid, and better to say them now than to be let them be forgotten with new distractions. She's not used to heeding such thoughts—normally she would discard them with nary a second thought. But this time, she allows herself the distraction, and swings her feet over her bed. They lead her to Thancred's room, and, despite the hour, she gives a purposeful knock.

She'll call it returning a favor.

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[funbreaker]

Thancred is also quick to down his cup of water, finishing it off in three generous gulps. He sets down the empty glass and nods firmly to M'ahina.

"You don't need to thank me, you know. This is what friends do for each other, is it not?" It should go without saying that he (and truly, any other Scion) would be there to hear M'ahina out at any time, and the opposite was certainly also true. While it isn't that often that Thancred wears his heart on his sleeve, he has with M'ahina. He still recalls his discussion with her, Estinien, and Urianger back at The Great Work as he reflected on how he could almost understand Fandaniel's despair, how it had hollowed him out and left him to want nothing more than the end of all things.

Of course, they could not allow that, and Thancred appreciates now more than ever what life has to offer. He lives not just for himself, but for Ryne. There's a comfort in knowing he'd been able to keep her safe, even while so far away.

Silence stretches between them for a few moments before Thancred breaks thought it. "It's always an odd feeling, though, isn't it? When the crisis is over and you're left to sort out what comes next." He's already made his own plans clear, but M'ahina doesn't seem to have made her mind up thus far. He can't help but be curious.

[sunseeker]

"Mmm," she agrees somewhat solemnly. "I had never been one for planning or obligations, but after a while, disaster after disaster, they all but seemed to design themselves."

And it could feel almost suffocating to her, who simply wanted move where the wind took her, and yet what was she to say to the burden on her shoulders? No? To look away, and have another pick up those pieces? Such a thing seemed ... unforgivable to her, much as she yearned to step away from it at times.

"I confess the freedom seems almost daunting now," she admits, "but I'm a bit eager to return to doing as I please and shedding some of those pesky responsibilities." A jest of course; she had learned to embrace them in her own way, as time went on. But the result is the same, that her plan is to have no plans, at least for a little while. "That was why I became an adventurer, after all."

Freedom. Of course, the full story was much more complicated than that, but that was gist of it.

[funbreaker]

It's been a long time since Thancred felt as if he was without those pesky obligations that M'ahina speaks of, he'll admit. Ever since he was taken on a ship to Old Sharlayan, it feels as if there's been something he needed to dedicate himself to wholeheartedly. Then he was inducted into the Circle of Knowing, and then the Scions...

As M'ahina says, everything had snowballed from one crisis to another after that, and while they'd all done what they could to take a break here or there, this is the first time in a long time that it feels like they might actually be able to catch their breath.

The cynical part of him says that it won't be long before some other threat presents itself, but he swallows down those words. They'll do no good now.

"It's what you deserve. A chance to simply go where you please, do what you please..." He leans forward, resting both arms on the table, and smiles at her. "And you are more than welcome to accompany myself and Urianger for a time, if you wish." He winks at her, but there's also no pressure. M'ahina should get the chance to do what she wants for once, but he does what her to know that option is open.