The Lion’s Challenge

OOC: Learning to say no and establish my boundaries are some of the bravest things I have done and continue to do. My late childhood years and adulthood have been an exploration of how to heal from the things I experienced as a very young child at the hands of people that should have been keeping me safe, and understand how it continues to impact me almost twenty years later. Finding that voice has been an essential part of my healing process.

IC: The answer should have come easily. Wasn't her existence proof of bravery, her scars a mantle of courageous feats? She looked down at them- her hands; pale things slipped snug into the black of velvet- contemplating them. Many a vein they had drawn from. Many a blade they had buried. They built. They broke. They took. They gave. The stories they carried, lacerated in skin and buried under claws, were far greater than any that would leave her lips. And yet she hid the stigmata of her past. There was no bravery in things done in the name of survival.

Beast- Golden eyes moved to her left thumb- deceiver- jumped to her pinkie- carnifex- then to the index- harbinger- before sliding to her middle finger. A name for each grievance she ever committed: the force she utilized to ensure success, the secrets she harbored, the lives she aided in ending, and the dark things she nurtured when they should have been destroyed. All for survival. All to get by.

All except for one.

Her eyes settled on her ring finger, her gaze lingering on her wedding band; the only mark her hands bore that was not hidden in shame. She considered it with a curious silence before drawing a soft breath. "Saying 'I do' is the bravest thing I have ever done." She ran her thumb under her finger's belly, twisting the metal band hugging it.

"I never knew fear until I looked eternity in the eyes and saw how gentle it's gaze was. It is a terrifying thing, being wanted. My instinct was to run." Running was easy, it was what she had always done. "I betrayed my nature." And in doing so, broke a vicious cycle.

To defy odds and choose change over instinct, was bravery beyond measure.