Did you know avoidance behaviour doesn't work when your brain is what you are trying to avoid

That was an rather odd thought. You cross the road and walk onto the grassy area.

It's more odd that you're trying to brush the fact your ONLY friend just blew up at you for entirely earned reasons.

Well no you aren't doing that, she made her points and she was right but –

But fuck all. You are doing that. The first thought you had after she left was how if she won't talk to you you can send her girlfriend after her to do your dirty work.

That's not fair, she didn't want to talk anymore and you should talk more Auria might be the only way to talk –

Talk, Talk. Didn't you listen to a word she said? You put her entire life at risk just to get off and you think you talk her out of being pissed?

Delilah wouldn't have –

Oh so you have a deep and through understanding of the woman you've spent maybe three hours with, without having an actual conversation. You have no idea what Delilah would or wouldn't have done if you pushed her.

Even if she had done something you're in a relationship with Anastasia –

Ah yes back to the old reliable of everyone else bailing you out of your fuck up. Lucia was one hundred percent correct. You haven't earned anything, everything you have was given to you by others. Your power, given to you by a Goddess.

They might have given it to you but –

But you learned to used it and how did you do that oh right by your father giving you your education.

You were here because –

Anastasia sponsored you to attend the Academy, something she did not because of anything you did but because she thought you would be a usable tool. You haven't even earned any of the relationships you are in. Your relationship with Edin, given to you by Anastasia; your relationship with Vatarie, all at her behest she liked your magic which was given to you by one of the Clare; your relationship with Asune, started and continued by her; your relationship with Oriana and Auria, given to you by Clare the second acting as the Mother of All; Cynthia, given to you by Anastasia.

This seems like an excessive amount of self disdain.

Well maybe that's because the only relationship that wasn't fucking given to you was Lucia and you decided to not care about her in the face of yet another women to get you off.

... You were finding it difficult to refute your own logic. A deeply uncomfortable sense of displaced self image was threatening to make you really dislike yourself. Your chest felt hot and you reached up to touch it.

Your mothers ring was caught in your hand. It felt soothingly warm. You were wrong about yourself, you had earned your relationship. When you met Edin you stood up for him, for two years you sent letters back and forth and no matter what Anastasia trained him to do he loved you for you not because of her. Vatarie went from seeing you as a possession to a person because you earned her respect and she loved you because you'd earned her love. Asune was attracted to you because she thought you were the same, but she knew they wasn't the case now and you believed she cared for you. Oriana and Auria were both affected by your decision to conduct the healing ritual, it might be based on the effort of others but you made the choices that made them like you, same with Cynthia. Clare, well you earned her and you'll be fucked if you let anyone say different, she literally told you you had earned her when you met.

So without your power you would be exactly where you are now?

No, your power put you hear and you might have been passive in some decisions but you earned where you are in everyone of your relationship. You fucked up with Lucia, you fucked up bad, and you could make up for it.

... see who needs avoidance when you have self reflection.

You looked at the ring in your hand. You couldn't remember the last time you had well remembered you had been wearing it. However there is one thing you remember about it. It had twenty dots around the outside only visible with magic. Eight of them were now visible without magic. When you checked your magic your saw the other dots were still there but those eight were just there now. You ran a finger over the dots but there was no change in texture.

Hang on ... were you just monologuing to yourself then? You were happy to admit you had no idea what the fuck was going on with the ring but both Clare had looked at it in their Goddess forms and neither had made any comment about it being, talkative.

"Can you hear me?" You ask holding the ring up to your lips.

It didn't glow or anything and the dots stayed where they were so that meant no? Maybe? Maybe you should find someone who knows about it.

Oh so are you going to think about the other thing you've been avoiding then.

You closed your hand around the ring, it hadn't given any indication magical or otherwise that is had been involved in that perceptive little nag so you let it go.

Stop avoiding it.

You aren't avoiding your father, you have things to do today you can't just leave to visit home and talk about ...

Talk about what with who?

I don't like you.

Shame I'm rather fond of you, we spend the vast majourity of time together. Now stop acting like a tentative non-committal appointment to teach Cynthia how to have pleasure a guy into falling for her and go deal with the eighteen years of paid for dishonesty.