|12| [Video]

[wing_attack]

[Tobias... doesn't look so good right now. The holidays had been nice, with people around him, but he couldn't help but think about the person who should be around, celebrating the holidays with him.]

[Should be, but isn't. Can't. Even if she came here somehow before -]

[- it'd be weird, knowing she was supposed to be dead.]

[So it's with the Lake of Rage in the background that Tobias looks up at the camera, blinking slowly. Maybe he should have set it to text, but whatever. It's too late now.]

If you... wanted to honor someone who wasn't here... who'd died... how would you do it? They... she was a hero. She died a hero. So I want to do something, but I don't... it's not like I have her ashes with me.

I know... that as long as I'm around, she's... I mean she's dead, but... I still remember her. I still...

... But she's dead, so... does it even matter anymore? Does... it really matter what I feel about... everything? She wasn't the only one who died that day but I... she was... I...

[He drops the 'Gear, his face in his hands, and a big furry brown paw reaches down to shut it off.]

Comments

[audio]

[nullorvoid]

[...Damn. Okay, that's...he doesn't exactly have good answers, but death is something that tends to catch his attention for obvious reasons.]

I'm sure you've already heard a lot of the standard advice, and I'm not going to try to be cute and tell you that everything happens for a reason or that she's in a better place now or whatever, because that doesn't help any. Not in the long run, anyway, because better place or not you probably want her here with you and not...that.

I don't know, you've probably heard the whole thing about living your life in a way they'd want you to. That's probably one of the better bits of advice out there. Honor them in what you do with yourself.

[audio]

[wing_attack]

... I don't know how to do that, though. Most of what we knew for a few years was fighting, and I can't do that anymore. I guess... she wanted me to hold on to my humanity, and I can do that... but I don't really know what to do to live my life how she'd want me to.

[nullorvoid]

Sometimes that's all you can really do, though, basic shit.

[...]

Who was she, anyway? To you.

[wing_attack]

She was...

[He's quiet for a few long moments, and then the sound of something shifting against fur.]

She was my... best friend, I guess. More than that. I.. she cared about me, she fought alongside me for three years - I mean the others did too, but it was always something... more with her. She held on to human things of mine. A photo. Clothes I could use when I morphed human. We... I guess... we were sort of a couple, without really being one. It was like the most screwed up Romeo and Juliet thing, except Romeo was a bird most of the time and Juliet regularly turned into a grizzly bear.

I don't really know how to describe it.

[Feelings are hard.]