She'd come back from Canis in a blind daze. Set Simon's stone safely in her den, tucked into loose dirt like a nest for safe-keeping, and then she had stumbled her way up the ridges with Morganite's words ringing in her ears. She had never meant for it to come to this. Steady footfalls, even on slick stone -- thunk, thunk, thunk. Go to fucking hell. Thunk, thunk, thunk. Steady droplets of water -- ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta. The rushing of the waterfall. I hate you. Was that a bumblebug, buzzing in her ear? Or the waterfall? Or maybe it was just her own heartbeat -- at this point, she wasn't sure she could tell the difference, as she climbed up, up, up. Further, further, further still.

You god damned nightmare.

It wasn't even made-up words in the Merchant's wheezy voice, not anymore -- it was just the steady rhythm of moving water, the steady rhythm of too-pale footsteps, and the steady words of someone who'd once been a sister as she stumbled up to the top of the waterfall.

The problem with wanting to kill yourself was that, by the time you managed to walk all the way to the top of the building or collect all your things, you'd probably had time to think about it. Because suicide was never rational, not even if they thought it was. And your hysteria, your misery, it always seemed like something out of a stranger in the light of a new day.

As soon as your fingers left the bridge, you regretted it.

Sora stared down at the water. She didn't really have the depth perception to gauge how far down it was, but it had taken her long enough -- wandering back here, deciding on the way, tucking Simon's stone away (why had she done that? Someone who was going to die didn't care about keeping their doors locked), trudging her way up this steep cave face carefully. Why carefully? (She didn't know either.)

Staring at the water, thinking.

Just thinking.

She felt... hollow, she decided. Not even sad. Just... cold. And it wasn't Pisces talking; it was her, like her heart had turned to stone and her stomach had been filled with water. She didn't even feel anything right now, barely even her nose, and stared listlessly at the surface of the deep. Hadn't she just saved someone who'd fallen like this--? Would chrysalis come, or would it be death? She wasn't sure. Didn't know which would be preferable.

Didn't know how she'd rather throw away their sacrifice make her life hers again.

... Not that it ever really had been.

She breathed in through her nose, and then out through her mouth. Whether the merchant had created her or stolen her, she wasn't sure. Either way, she'd never had her own life. (Distantly, she wondered who she might have been without him.) She'd never owned herself until... the trial had ended. The Master, he'd told her that-- that she'd been given a gift. Or maybe it was the smaller one, or one of the others--? She wasn't sure. Someone had said it. Maybe a couple of them.

It didn't matter anyway.

(None of this mattered.)

Except, it did.

Why else would she go to all of the trouble...? She was constantly going to the trouble. Pacing back and forth, like a tiger in a cage. Swimming, eating, sunning, swimming, sleeping. If it really didn't matter, she'd have starved in her den (or not made it in the first place). She'd have left their stones in Hydra (or gone by herself). Sora looked down coldly at the water, imagining how the ice would feel. She'd started to drown, in Hydra. Had felt the water betraying her, pulling her under. She'd never been betrayed by the water before.

But, then, she didn't imagine Tenzin had been, either.

Sora sighed, feeling very much like taking a nap instead of killing herself. So, with a last quiet glance towards the waterfall and a feeling somewhat approaching thanks, she turned away and began her careful, quiet descent back down.