[MythicDusk]

Belias looked over at her and couldn't help but give her a soft smile. "You always know what to say, huh." He chuckled softly, kissing the top of her head as he pulled her close. His brow then furrowed slightly. "Zari, I have to tell you." He took in a deep breath that swelled his chest, his brow furrowed heavily and his eyes screwed close, obviously trying to find the courage to say what he wanted, no, needed to say.

"I love you, Zari. I honestly do. But, there's one thing that I have to, that I need to tell you." He pulled away slightly, holding her by the shoulders. "Please don't be mad. but, you have to understand. I don't think I'll be able to love you as much as I loved Keahi, as much as I do love Keahi. I mean, I want to be happy with you, I want you to be happy with me, but I don't know if I can give you my whole heart, fully and truly." There was only honesty in his eyes as he looked into hers, his arms beginning to tremble. "Please forgive me, Zari." He sighed gently, bowing his head.

[Mousen]

That... That hurt. She froze ever so slightly, pulling back from his embrace after what Belias had just said sunk in. Atleast, in part. There were a few things sitting in the tip of her tongue, mostly involving horrible comments about corpses and funerals but she couldn't bring herself to actually say them. She was tactless, not tasteless. Besides, while she was almost certain that Belias would never raise a hand against her, he most certainly wouldn't speak to her.

The question really was, would she want him to? Afterall, if Keahi by some miracle walked through the door at that moment would Belias just walk off and forget her? Sure, she was definitely dead, but the thought of it stung. It was difficult even processing the fact that there was someone who'd always be more important to Belias than her, even if that person had been dead for years. They say you never forget your first love, but this was taking things to the absolute extreme.

So, she did her best to cope. That meant attempting to break Belias' nose. Sure, he was probably twice her size with battleheart bones of granite, but right now she wouldn't care less. "You're an absolute bastard, you know that?" She spat, cradling her hand. Funnily enough, it was the one she'd broken earlier that year up in Basantha Shrine.

[MythicDusk]

Ignoring his injured nose, and the blood streaming past his lips, he hissed in a breath, ignoring the pain and instead began to fuss over Zari. wiping the blood away quickly and with a slight snorting sound, he fussed over her hand. "I know I am, and I'm sorry, but that doesn't mean you should hurt your hand on me. Next time, use a bat or something." There was a pure sense of seriousness in his voice. "I didn't want to keep anything back, Zari. I wanted to be able to tell you anything, and for you to do the same." He hunched down slightly to be at her eye level. "Please, Zari. I'm so sorry." He croaked. He then softly took her arm. "Please, let's go put some ice on that hand." He gave a weak smile, his glowing eyes dimming.

[Mousen]

"My hand's fine." She snapped back, pursing her lips. "And I'm sick of you acting so blood noble all the time, would it kill you to act like a normal human being for once? And you know, next time I will use a bat. Or maybe a crowbar. So there." Zari was vaguely away of how childish she sounded. It really hadn't been the best thing she'd ever said.

The young woman sighed. "You're bleeding." She'd always had a gift for stating the obvious. "How do you expect me to react, Belias? To just ignore what you just said to me? How would you feel if the situation was reversed?"

[MythicDusk]

Belias dropped her arm and began to roar out of frustration, tangling his hands into his hair, grabbing large fistfuls and wrenching at it, roaring with a mixture of self inflicted pain and pure fury. "You wanna know why I act so damn noble all the time?!" He roared at her, his eyes glowing with a bright fury, his face twisted into something that wasn't...Well, wasn't Belias. "It's because I'm afraid of loosing you like I did her! I'm afraid that if I don't act like a goddamn prince, if I let myself go just once, just goddamn once, then something'll happen and I'll loose you!" His voice was reaching higher and higher states of hysterics.

He turned and punched a wall, obviously fracturing his hand and smashing his fist through the mirror. "You know why I said that?! Because I know, one day, You're going to get so fed up with me, you'll leave, and if I convince myself that I don't love you as much as I love Keahi, that if I'm not fully devoted to you like a goddamn am, it might not hurt as much. I might be able to move on, but you wanna know the truth!? I probably love you more than I do Keahi! And it hurts! It hurts to know that someone took her place, that I'm handing my heart to you on a silver platter, and a lot of the time you just shrug it off!" Tears were now streaming down his face, shards of mirror embedded in his knuckles. his shoulders trembled and his breathing shuddered and he quickly turned away from her, marching into the kitchen.

[Mousen]

Zari was taken aback, her breath caught in her throat and she was suddenly surprised to find herself on the verge of tears. The young woman was not someone who often cried, even less in front of a living, breathing person. Unable to say anything in reply, she stood still for a long moment. It was only after Belias had turned away from her and gone into the kitchen that she finally spoke. "I'm like a bad penny. Impossible to get rid of." Her voice was quiet, and it was unlikely Belias had heard her wavering tone. She took a deep breath, expelling the built up tension before striding into the kitchen.

"What is it with you and blood? Do you have a complex or something?" She asked, leaning against the kitchen door. "Just so you know, I'm not leaving. Maybe a long time ago, I might have, because you know me, Belias, Miss Mary Contrary. I didn't like to stay in once place... It scared me. It was too much like being back at home, well, my mother's house. Travelling with the circus meant that if things got difficult, I could just leave. Even if they weren't, I left anyway." She busied herself with getting out the first aid kit, putting it down on the kitchen table.

"There's been quite a few guys, in the past. I've never really been in a relationship this serious, but there's been people I've dated for a few weeks here and there. After awhile, 'I love you' kind of lost it's charm. I don't mean to be flippant... It's just... I'm not affectionate. It doesn't mean I don't love you. I just... Do you want me to help you with your stupid self-inflicted injuries or are you going to bleed to death? That has to be a really stupid way to go, bleeding to death from getting cut by a broken mirror. It's supposed to be bad luck, and as if we need any more of that!" In a moment, Zari was back to her usual self.

[MythicDusk]

Sitting at the kitchen table, Belias said nothing, and he simply sat still, staring down at his still-clenched fist so the shards didn't work themselves deeper into his flesh, and he slowly looked up at her. "Can we not berate me for five seconds? I'm not in the mood." His voice was low and full of danger as he grabbed one of the larger shards between his thumb and forefinger and promptly tore it out of his hand, grunting with pain as blood leaked from the wound and he prepared himself to tear out another section of mirror, ignoring the now drying blood on his face.

[Mousen]

"I'm trying to be nice." She huffed. Zari found a small pair of tweezers and a small bottle of anti-septic gel in the depths of the first-aid kit. She sat down beside him, one slender hand with bitten nails resting on his wrist, while she started to take out some of the tiniest fragments of glass. After a moment or two she paused, looking up at Belias. "Do you want a cloth or something? I didn't mean to hit you quite that hard... Or maybe I did. I don't really remember." Conversation from Zari's side soon fell flat.

[MythicDusk]

Belias simply sat in silence, staring at his hand. He then shook his head slowly. "I'll be fine. My hand's my biggest worry, after all, I need it for my work-" He cut himself off with a bite to his lip, his brow furrowing with worry. He had never told her about his work, why did he want to start now? She would only worry It would be stupid to bring up his mercenary work now. The fact that he was only home for six months out of the year before he had to march off into some unending battle, be starved half to death and end up limping home with broken armor and a broken spirit. He slowly pulled his hand away, ignoring the last remnants of the glass, still chewing his bottom lip.

[Mousen]

She was about to reply with a standard phrase, something about infections or maybe a sarcastic remark that she'd say in place of saying what she actually meant, but then she frowned. Tensions were running a little high, and Zari didn't want to do say anything stupider than all the stuff she'd already said. "Your work? What do you mean about your work?" As odd as it seemed, the dark-haired woman hadn't thought about what Belias actually did for a living. She couldn't exactly see him working as an accountant or a teacher.

Ever since she'd broken away from her circus she'd done a wee bit of preforming here and there. A small amount of trapeze here and there, etc. She still continued her training, even if her line of work was scarce. (And really, in light of this, there'd been times where she'd thought about going back to her original troupe.) Considering how much thought she'd put into her own line of work, it seemed doubly silly that she should forget about what Belias did.

[MythicDusk]

Belias flexed his hand, working out the last shard of glass, and he opened his mouth to lie, looking up at her, and when he looked into the bright blue eyes, his mouth snapped shut again. He could feel the truth pushing at the back of his throat, his voice wanting to be heard, so he let it free. "I'm a mercenary. I fight for money. I'm gone most of the year, I'm sorry." He sighed, hanging his head in shame as he plucked the last shard of glass from his knuckles. He then stood up, grabbing open the freezer and plucking out a bag of frozen peas, placing them on the table. "Put those on your hand. They should stop the swelling." He spoke in a muted tone, glaring at the patterns in the wood of the table, as if they had hurt him in some personal and deep manner.

[Mousen]

From the look on Belias' face, she could tell that he wasn't keen on telling her at all. Bracing herself for bad news (though what sort of bad news she wasn't sure) she didn't look up until Belias had finished speaking. "You could have told me." He could have told her a lot of things, but that was beside the point. "I wouldn't have freaked out, even if you'd told me when we'd first met. I wouldn't have minded. Though you left the 'oh by the way trying to get myself killed isn't just a hobby, it's a job' speech a bit late." Zari's tone of voice was unusually quiet.

"I couldn't care less about my hand." She snapped. Realizing her tone had been just a bit too harsh, she sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Sorry. I just... You get into so much trouble anyway, without... without it being your job. How long are you planning on living, anyway?"

[MythicDusk]

"Long enough to make you happy." His glowing eyes snapped up form the table and they bore into hers. Tey glew brighter than what they had in a while, he softly placed the peas on her hand, his mouth pressed into a hard line. "Please, Zari. Trust me. I know you're convinced I have something against myself, and I maybe do, but I leave all that behind as soon as I step out onto the battlefield, everything that I know and love is out of my mind. I only focus on getting the job done, and when that job is done, I go back to almost dying." He gave her a slightly teasing smirk. "I know I've given you no reason to trust me thus far, Zari, but please, trust me." He spoke softly, holding out his damaged hand to her, watching her carefully.

[Mousen]

"I would have been happy before, I still am happy. Relatively speaking." Well, considering that she'd almost broken his nose and he'd smashed a mirror and they'd argued and nearly ended up crying and everything else. Considering all that she was fairly reasonable, and in the long run very happy with her life. "Belias, I know I can't stop you and... If this is your life and if you're going to have to leave to try and almost get killed- and before you say anything I will not stop referring to your mercenary... ing as that - then I'm not going to be able to stop you am I? I might quite like it if you did something nice and safe and non-lethal but that's not you, is it? I should have known you'd do something stupid for a living." She'd worry, of course she'd worry. The worry of when he was going to leave was already settling, but it didn't mean she wouldn't be happy.

"I... don't know, Belias. I know you're very good at... Not dying? Any other person probably would have died by now, but you're still not dead. Maybe that's something." She smiled slightly, looking up at him. "You're absolutely crazy, Belias, you know that?" Being careful of the various cuts and scrapes he'd gotten in his fight with the mirror she placed her own very slightly injured hand on top of his, there was the very faintest touch of a bruise on her knuckles, but nothing else. Out of the two of them, she was certainly the better off this time.

[MythicDusk]

Belias gave her the softest hint of a smile, placing his four-and-a-half fingered hand over her damaged one, letting his cool blood chill his hand slightly, using his own hand as a kind of ice pack. "I'm not going to die for a long while yet, my little flower." He purred with a slightly teasing tone. "Do you want me to show you where you'll be sleeping tonight?" He didn't move, smiling softly and rubbing her damaged hand softly, almost willing it to heal with his cold hands.