...
"You know, Ururun" Gyoro said, as we headed back to the dorm after dinner, "If I were talking to Ashton right now, I would point out that his ex is headed this way, and she looks pissed. If I were talking to Ashton. Which I'm not, because he's a craphead."
I turned around and there she was, red hair flashing in the setting sun, as she stalked up to me. Her bared teeth frightened me more than any beast I'd ever fought and-
"So, it's finally happened, has it?" She snapped. "What I tell you about leaving those monsters on your back!?"
"Friends..." I said, trying to ignore her emerald eyes and bell-like voice. Dammit, I thought I was over her...think Quibbler, Ashton, think about that..."These 'monsters' are my friends."
"They're dragons! I knew this would happen! You should've listened to me and-"
"Killed them? Even if they weren't my friends, they're people now! I don't care if they tear me to shreds, I won't kill them! Why can't you understand that?"
(If Gyoro and Ururun exchanged a guilty look here, I didn't notice. Much.)
"You had friends until you decided to keep those things!" She was in my face now, and even bright red and screaming at me, she was still beautiful. I was actually pretty happy to see her mad. I hated it when she was scared of us. "You're just stubborn! You didn't listen to us and now look at yourself!"
"Oh, granted," My temper was rising, and that was never a good thing. "Gyoro and Ururun aren't like you and all my old friends. After all, they can't exactly abandon me while I'm in the hospital, can they? And since I don't plan on dating them, they can't dump me and lie about me to a gossip rag for money!"
I thought I had a fast right hook. But then, who do you think spent a week teaching her how to throw a decent punch, eh?
...it didn't hurt at all, physically. It wouldn't have even before I'd fused with Gyoro and Ururun. And she...
"Let me...let me see your hand." I said.
She shook her head, sucking on her aching knuckles.
"Dammit, we're not going to bite it off! I want to see if you broke anything!"
She sighed and held her hand out, looking away as I probed it. What do you know? The first time we touched each other in nearly two months.
"You have changed, Ashton." She looked at me as if I were a space alien. "You never had this much backbone before."
"You've got three backbones now!" Gyoro chimed in. "Oooh! Tell her that, Ashton! It's funny! Say it all suave-like! 'I've got three backbones, babe, and they're all for you!' Say that!"
"Shut up!" Ururun hissed through his wired jaw. "Moron!!"
Of course, my ex couldn't understand any of that, so all she heard was two dragons growling and hissing. She backed away, and I could see all the whites around her eyes.
"Gyoro said to tell you I had three backbones now, and Ururun told him to shut up. Hmph, Terrifying, aren't they? You've got good reason to be scared of such ferocious beasts."
"Huh, and I guess all those bandages are from love nibbles?" Her lips quirked in amusement, even though she was still pale.
"We had a disagreement. It happens." I said. "Why'd you do it? Why'd you lie to the Quibbler about us? That oracle girl said it was for the money, but-"
"That was part of it. And..." She looked into my eyes. "...You chose them over me, Ashton. You may not have realized you were doing it, but that's what you did. How did you think I would react?"
"I don't know...lately I wonder if I ever knew you at all." I said. "You realize that if you wanted money, we could have just asked for it, don't you? My family-"
"I don't want anything to do with your family!!" She said, with uncharacteristic venom.
"What's wrong with my family? Granted, Mom and Dad are a little weird, but they've always treated you well." I said. "And I told you about Gollstaine, and our Vow. I thought you'd accepted it."
"I thought I had, too, until I came up there myself."
"...I warned you about Mom."
Her face softened. "...I know you did. But seeing her...seeing her made me start to realize something about you and your family."
Something prickled in the back of my head. Hadn't Tifa mentioned something about-
"And then, when you and your dad went to fight those manticores? You were gone for days! I didn't get an hour of sleep, and when you came back-"
"I had seven broken bones. I remember. It's hard to forget."
"Well, I realized...What if I married you? I'd spend every day knowing that either that damn curse or that stupid Vow would kill you someday, that it was inevitable, or that you'd be...you'd be..."
"Crippled? You can say it. She does."
"...And if we had children? I'd probably outlive at least a few of them, wouldn't I? I'd always be wondering which ones would live and which would die! That is, if some monster didn't kill me first, or someone from that one branch of your family didn't murder me to get to you!"
"Do you think I would have dated you if I didn't think you understood-?"
"How could you expect me to live with that?! How could you expect anybody to live with that?!"
I'm an idiot. I realized. How could i have missed this?
"This is the part," Ururun said dryly. "Where you point out that people have apparently been "living with it" for a thousand years, or else you wouldn't be here to be yelled at right now. Go ahead, Ashton."
"'Shut up, moron!'" Gyoro said mockingly.
"Don't start-"
"Tell your dragons to SHUT THE HELL UP!" She glared at them.
"Well! You're not scared of them at all now, are you? Look..."
"Don't give me that crappy line you always say about maybe cheating fate. We both know better! You'll keep doing stupid crap like...like this-" She gestured to the dragons. "-your whole life. That's who you are, who you were raised to be. You'll never change. It took me three years to realize that, and when I did I knew it was over."
"Why didn't you break up with me right away? I spent months trying to make you happy, and you just strung me along!"
"I tried, damn you! Don't you think I tried?!...But it was over, Ashton. All the-all the things I like so much about you, they'll get you killed someday."
"I loved you. Doesn't that mean anything? I still-"
"Ashton...Ash..." She lightly brushed my cheek with her hand, where she'd socked me only minutes before. She leaned in close to me, so close I could feel her warm breath on my lips. "Don't make this any harder on yourself than it has to be."
"It's not fair-!"
"No, it's not. But that's the way things are, isn't it?"
And then she walked away.
And...
And I...
...I'm really tired.
((Whew. Okay, So, Ashton's going to have a big bruise on his left cheek tomorrow. His demeanor is going to be such that it might be a bad idea for anyone to approach him. The dragons are going to do their best to warn people off, shaking their heads in a panicked fashion and all that. He's...not up to talking with anyone right now.))