Anyone who knows Arya Jackson for more than five minutes knows her opinion of the world, and demigods not so fair place in it. Unfortunately, since the war Arya isn't that easy to get to know. To most she's little more than a legend.
Arya is fine w...
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19.
Battle General Jackson
FUCK.
It had all hit her all at once.
She wasn't even sure what it was.
One minute she was talking with Ace, deeply and openly, like she had grown accustomed to over these few weeks.
The next minute he had changed his entire demeanor. She would never consider Ace to be a pushover, but he was relatively easy-going. Suddenly a switch flipped and he was hardened, firm, insistent on making her that promise. For the first time since she had known him she couldn't argue with him because she knew she would lose.
In the final minute they were touching again. She realized she liked to be close to him because he made her feel safe. Not from the monster attacks or the incoming war, no one could do that. Safe in the sense that the weight of the world that had been constantly beating her down since she was fourteen, couldn't touch her. When she shared her life with him, that's all it was, questions that lead to emotion filled stories. With Ace, she could recount her memories and she didn't feel like they were happening around her again and again.
His warmth brought her a comfort she had never quite known.
When he smiled at her it had become her only definition of hope.
He looked at her in a way that made her soul ache.
She hadn't felt like this since...
And Yet...
When it hit her, Arya's body tightened and she pulled her hand out of Aces at the same time the ship jerked. The closing distance between them was no longer, the rough waters her excuse out.
Without a word, without so much as a flicker of emotion she turned on her heel and left him there at the bottom of the ship with gods know what kind of thoughts in his head. She hated that her feet carried her up the steps faster than they should have just so she could get the distance.
Whatever Arya was starting to feel, she realized it couldn't be. A snap decision, one that she knew was right, even if her heart was telling her something else.
And now you run away. Like a coward.
The reason Ero's words had hurt so much is because they were true. In the end, she did the very thing Eros had berated her about. She ran away.
