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this update is SOOO late, but happy hollidays, everyone!
please remember to vote or i'll cry
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Of all the words that have ever been used to describe me, compassionate has never been one of them.
"Compassion?" I can't help but scoff, my face contorting in disgust. Just saying the word makes me feel ridiculous. "You are kidding, aren't you?"
"No, I don't think I am," Aunt Bellatrix muses, frowning down into her empty mug before leaning over to grab the crystal decanter from off the side table and pour more into it.
It's not something I'm upset about either, because, quite frankly, I wouldn't use "compassionate" as a descriptor for myself. I'm many things. I'm ambitious, deceptive, and unrelenting. I'm not compassionate.
"No offense, Aunt Bellatrix, but I'm not quite sure that's it," I say, furrowing my brows while she gestures for me to take a seat beside her. She watches me with wide, glittering black eyes that dare me to leave the room, and then I walk forward quietly and sit on the opposite side of the sofa.
"Why not?" she asks almost mockingly, giving me a pout.
"Compassion isn't exactly one of my more... prominent qualities. I don't see how having it would be my problem."
There are very few people in the world I'll show any compassion to, and even then, it can be very much conditional.
"That's exactly it," she giggles, tipping the mug towards me and lifting her brows as she offers the whiskey. "Want a sip?"
I shake my head, so she sighs, shrugs, and tips some of the contents into her mouth.
"That's exactly it," she says once more, exhaling and stifling a slight belch while I shift uncomfortably, well aware of her bare feet propped up onto the sofa nearly touching my thigh. "You aren't a very 'compassionate' person, which is good. It's just a sugarcoated word for cowardly, weak-willed, neither of which you should ever be. But part of you still wants to... tap into the compassion you don't have. The reason you might hesitate to do the things that need to be done, the harsh things, the cruel things, is that what little compassion you have wants to grow, so it makes you second guess yourself."
I swallow thickly, turning my gaze down to my hands. It doesn't seem correct at all. "I just don't get how—"
"You don't show it very often, not to too many people, but when you do, well—" Bellatrix interrupts herself with a humorless snort, swallowing back more whiskey. "When you do, even a fool could spot it from a mile away."
