Eight Intertwined

55 - Bifelgan

Tressa didn't know what was going on with Therion, but she decided that she didn't like it.

It bothered just how quickly he was able to change when he was pushed the wrong way. Worse, she didn't even know what was going on to make him act strangely after being so nice before that point. Therion had seemed almost proud of her when she was able to give him the last push needed to break into Orlick's mansion to steal the dragonstone. She could sense the gratitude in his eyes even if he never spoke a word of it. He was happy to be around the rest of the group even though he didn't want to admit it. When Therion spent time with them, he seemed to lose much of the tension in his shoulders, allowing himself to smile behind his scarf and hope the others didn't notice. It was so strange how someone that Tressa had expected to despise was actually turning out to be incredibly sweet, not that he wanted to say such a thing. She doubted he even liked her thinking it, and yet, there she was.

Hearing him say that he was better off alone so suddenly after all of that was like a punch to the stomach for Tressa. She hadn't even realized she was at risk of being stabbed in the back that way until it happened. It wasn't as if Tressa thought that Therion was perfectly in sync with everyone else yet. She knew better than to believe something like that given the fact that hesitation still seemed to rule quite a few of his actions, but that didn't mean she saw it coming when he suddenly shifted his demeanor and acted as if the others were wasting their time by being around him. 

Tressa had spoken with Ophilia about it briefly while they were packing their things to head for Goldshore, and Ophilia seemed to think that it was a matter of self-sabotage rather than anything else. Therion was afraid of reaching out and was throwing up walls haphazardly because he feared getting hurt. Ophilia seemed to know the feeling all too well, leaving Tressa with more questions than answers. She asked how she could help Therion, something she never thought she would do, but Ophilia simply smiled sadly and shook her head. 

"He has to decide he wants help on his own. We can't push him into anything yet."

That hurt almost as much as what Therion had said, truth be told, though Tressa didn't want to say such a thing out loud. It felt ridiculous that she was letting her feelings get hurt by something like this, and yet, there she was, feeling as if her stomach had been hollowed out by words that Therion hadn't even wanted to speak in the first place. If he didn't want to be mean, then why did he say those awful things to begin with? Even if it was him hating himself rather than being upset with the others, it still hurt Tressa a lot more than she wanted to admit, and she wanted to curl in on herself and wait until the pain went away, though she could already tell it wasn't going to be that easy.

Therion was one problem that Tressa didn't know how to solve, and she didn't think there was a solution that wouldn't end with Therion snapping at her and possibly making the situation worse. Under most circumstances, Tressa would just deal with her fear of causing everything to explode and storm right into his heart and force him into honesty, but the last thing she wanted to do was poke someone as volatile as Therion in the wrong place. It was a terrible situation, but she knew that keeping her distance was probably her best move. After all, Tressa didn't know much when it came to how Therion worked deep down, but she could tell that this was something that she had no knowledge of and would probably only get worse if she got too close. It stung, but she knew that Ophilia had a point even if she hated to admit it more than anything else.

Even if Tressa couldn't solve the Therion problem though, there was something she could do about Ophilia. The cleric was better than she had been back in Bolderfall, yes, but Tressa could tell that there was still something on her mind. If Tressa had to guess, it was a mix between wondering just what had caused Ophilia to feel so sick out of the blue like that and wondering what to do about Therion. Her mind had been going back and forth for the last two hours since they left Noblecourt, and even as they fought off the monsters of the coast, Tressa found herself trying to find a solution to everything that had proven to be so problematic that morning.