Fractured Fairy Tales

Ascending Earth 9, R.Y. 778

Mesa nudged the door open gently to find Opal sitting in the window sill of the room they'd been sharing. She had a blanket over her knees and stared wearily out the window; a half-empty bottle of whiskey dangled loosely by its neck from her fingertips. Mesa sighed.

Opal lifted the bottle to her lips and cocked her head back. The size of the gulp she took made it even clearer that it wasn't her first of the night. Mesa sat on the bed, a few feet away from Opal, and tossed his haori next to him. He decided to break the silence as he was rolling a cigarette.

"You've been in especially poor spirits lately."

Opal, smacking her lips after a particularly long pull, squinted hazily at the label on the whiskey bottle.

"Tell me about it. You ran out of good shit the first night we got here. And that's not all my fault. You guys haven't exactly been tee totaling it."

Mesa lit the cigarette without reacting to Opal's sarcastic reply.

"You've barely left the room since we got here. The others are starting to wonder what the hell's wrong with you. And so am I."

Mesa exhaled a ring of smoke and held his hand out to Opal, who passed the bottle to him. He took a drink and then set the bottle roughly on the nightstand. He laid back on the bed and took another drag of his cigarette while he waited for a reply, unsure if he'd actually get one. Opal decided to oblige his prying, however.

"I guess... I didn't realize how out of control I could get," she said, cautiously.

Mesa smirked and replied, "Ha, you mean with the booze?"

"No, fuck off. I mean with Naru... I just... lost it. I directly betrayed the Order, I attacked our allies, I didn't think any of that through. I just flew straight off the fucking handle. Gods, I'm worse than Anton."

Mesa sat up, blowing another cloud of smoke, albeit a shapeless one this time.

He asked her, "Does that bother you?"

Opal extended her arm and held out two fingers. Unsure if she was asking for more whiskey or a drag, Mesa handed her the cigarette in hopes of keeping her coherent long enough to talk to her. She took a drag and paused for a moment, holding the smoke in her mouth. Pursing her lips into a tight circle, she worked them back and forth rapidly, producing a spider-shaped plume of smoke. She smirked and remarked, "Nice, right? I think you're rubbing off on me."

Even Mesa, who had intended to have a serious conversation, couldn't help but be amused. He grinned and admitted, "Actually, that is pretty cool. You know, I remember a long time ago, five or six years, you were scolding me for sleeping around when I should have been working. I was remarking on what a time sink it was making up stories to get away from one night stands in the morning. You said one of the down sides of sleeping with someone regularly is that you might actually have to talk to them."

Opal sighed, and Mesa continued, "Well, time to put your money where your mouth is."

Opal replied timidly, "Can I at least have the whiskey back?"

Mesa shrugged - he could only be so serious. He picked up the bottle from the night stand, took a long drink, and handed it back to Opal. He repeated his question.

"So you were a bit... brash with the whole Naru situation. And that's not really first the time. But is that what's bothering you?"

Opal shrugged, taking another drink to buy more time with her response. She finally replied.

"I don't know. Feeling that way, thrashing back relentlessly to get to Naru, forgetting about what damage I was doing to the Order... it got me thinking about how we got to this point. Deep shit like that... The kind none of us like admitting we think about."

Mesa retorted quickly, "But we all do. What do you mean 'this point'?"

"I dunno... This just wasn't how I imagined it. Life, work, whatever."

Mesa sighed, realizing this risked becoming a deeper conversation than he was hoping for. He took the bottle back from her and took a long pull himself before replying with another question.

"What did you imagine?"

Opal shook her head, gesturing for the bottle back. While she waited for Mesa to hand it over, she said, "I don't know. Gods, damn. I don't know. That's why I didn't want to have this conversation. I'm not ready to have it. I don't know... I guess I miss when things were less personal. Further from home. I liked when we could still pretend like this was just a job."

She chuckled a bit, although the end of the chuckle trailed off into a hiccup, then continued.

"Ugh. A convenient illusion, I know. What a hypocrite I must be, upset that something bad finally happened to someone I care about..."

Opal, clearly quite drunk at this point, slumped further back into the window sill and elaborated. Before talking, she rubbed her face with her hands and groaned.

"I hate feeling this way too. This is almost as bad as being uncontrollably pissed off."

Mesa questioned, "Feeling what way?"

Opal contemplated her reply for a moment, feeling her own limited eloquence fading by the minute. "I dunno... all existential... Doesn't this type of shit ever bother you?"

Mesa thought for a moment and finished his cigarette in silence. He turned to Opal, leaning back on his elbows.

"Actually, it doesn't."

Opal stared at Mesa, blank-faced. She blinked a few times, trying to process his response, which wasn't quite what she expected. She sighed, privately wondering if Mesa was just fucking with her. One thing she'd learned about Mesa is that his sentimentality was often an act, albeit a convincing one. He was always happy to talk about feelings or the meaning of life, but never his feelings or the meaning of his life. He was perfectly comfortable being emotional, philosophical, or even empathetic, as long as it didn't involve him. It was always reactionary, always in response to someone else. In painting a picture of himself as someone who, despite being a careless drunkard, would happily laugh with you, cry with you, and give you a shoulder to lean on, Mesa had created a brilliant emotional camouflage that concealed any true feelings he had about anything under layers and layers of good spirit and camaraderie. Almost everybody in the Order could recall having some deep, meaningful conversation with Mesa at the end of a drunken night of debauchery, but they'd never pooled their experiences to realize Mesa was always on the listening end - it was never Mesa spilling his guts. Nobody, except perhaps Ash - who hid behind enough of a facade himself - had been through enough personal conversations with Mesa to realize what good camouflage it was. That camouflage was so thick that even Opal wondered if there was anything under it sometimes. Still, she would see glimpses of Mesa - in his music, in his advice, in the tone his voice took on when he was consoling her, in the way he'd hold her at night - and that's what kept her coming back. So, half-expecting a joke or a non-answer, she forced some clarity back into her skull and invited him to continue.

"What do you mean, Mesa?"

Mesa took his time providing an answer. First, he leaned over and fished through the contents of their nightstand, producing the small, porcelain dragon-shaped bowl that Mesa was fond of smoking from. He packed it loosely with a pinch of Chayan weed before unceremoniously dunking the glowing embers that remained of his cigarette into the bowl. He puffed on it generously, igniting the dry herbs. After savoring the smoke for a few minutes, he let it out of his mouth slowly. When burned, Chayan weed broke down into luminescent compounds evident in the soft red glow given off by the smoke Mesa exhaled. Finally, he replied.

"I guess I have it in my head that this quest for meaning is an illusion - a distraction. Everybody secretly - or openly - imagines themselves as a hero in their own story, and they get it in their heads that life is some narrative that has to have ups, downs, ebbs, flows, a purpose, and a climax - and a conclusion. They need to struggle, fight, grow, be burned down and then re-birthed in the embers. I see the distinction - not everyone has 'struggles' of the same magnitude - one guy wants to conquer the world while another just wants be a master carpenter. But it's same story, and it's doubly true with Exalts - we let ambition of the worst kind blind us. We go about our daily lives with this imagined purpose and labor under the delusion that someday the struggle will be over and we can finally live our lives. And that's a convenient fairy tale, to be sure."

Mesa leaned back fully on the bed as he continued speaking, "But it's just that - a fairy tale. You say you didn't imagine yourself being here?" Mesa shrugged. "You think I did? I was a wandering bard more concerned about my next meal than where my life was headed. But that attitude works. We only have so much control over our circumstances. I'm not so attached to one thing, one idea, one life that I grasp at it while every other thread slips right by me. There's no magical tomorrow where then we can just be."

Opal, developing a slightly agitated tone in her voice, replied, "I get that. Damnit, I get that. That's exactly why I wanted to be a Grass-Spider. Challenging work, pays well, thrilling - supposed to give me the chance to stop and take in life every once in awhile without being consumed by some drive to unite the Realm or some shit."

Mesa, slightly high and unable to resist a sarcastic reply, interjected, "Well that didn't quite play out, did it?"

Opal sighed, biting back, "Oh, fuck you, Mesa."

Mesa shot right back, "No, fuck you! You're not getting it. Here's what I'm trying to say - you're not in this state of mind because this job is some unbearable personal hell. You might be a poor fit for it, sure, but I actually don't think that's true. We have the same job you do, and we're getting by just fine."

Opal replied, "Fine? You would consider us a fine, well-adjusted group of people?"

After a few seconds of silence, Mesa shrugged.

"Alright, point well-taken. So the job is pretty messed up. But we're still out there doing it. Everybody has their own way of handling it, I guess. The only thing I was trying to get at when I was telling you how I handle it is that I don't think it's something about the job itself that has your panties in a knot. You say this job, this life wasn't what you imagined, but I bet you couldn't come up with anything that was actually better. You're blaming being a Grass--Spider because it's easier - because this fractured-fairy-tale scenario lets you wallow and mope without dealing with something you're afraid to confront."

Opal tried to choke out a reply; she tried to tell Mesa that she agreed, that he was right, and that she just couldn't even figure out what it was she was hiding from. Instead, the alcohol and the anxiety and the tension were too much, and she stammered, looking for words while the tears finally rose up over their eyelid dams and flowed freely down her cheeks. Just as Mesa's expression was starting to turn to one of guilt, she lashed out instead.

"You fucking asshole. You patronizing son-of-a-bitch. Just stroll in and act like you've thought this all through and your sagely advice is exactly what I needed to hear to get through this personal crisis - it must all seem so simple to you, Mesa."

Opal sat up, casting the blanket aside and assuming a mocking tone while she imitated a satirical version of Mesa.

"Oh, look at me, I'm Mesa, I'm detached and free of worldly attractions. I walk the revered middle path and do all things in moderation. That's why I hang out exclusively with alcoholics and drug dealers and keep a giant, giant fucking pile of gold under my mansion in Nexus! What? You're mad I'm taking three weeks just to go scout out a marketplace? You need to cool down - that's not laziness, it's enlightenment! I'm so fucking wise! You're just being blinded by that burning ambition of yours, wanting to do your job and all! Our dreams aren't propelling us forward, they're holding us back."

She sneered, taking another drag from the bottle and resuming her normal speaking voice, though her tone was decidedly venomous.

"Very profound, Mesa, very profound."

Mesa, a bit taken aback by her tearful outburst, set the bowl on the edge of the bed and leaned forward as he tried to defend himself.

"What did you want me to say, Opal? And by the way, I might take a long time to do my job, but I do do my job. That's a point of contrast right now."

Opal buried her face in her knees and, in between sobs, managed a terse reply.

"Fine. I'll get my shit together. Give me until tomorrow."

Mesa sighed - her reply had an icier tone than he was hoping for, and it was clear she was beyond consolation tonight. Admittedly, he felt terrible, but was starting to become a bit frustrated himself with Opal's worsening psychological state.

"Listen, Opal, I'm sorry, that's not how I meant for that to go, I just -- I mean, I don't know what it is with you anymore. Really, what were you hoping for you started telling me all this?"

Again, in between sobs, Opal replied bitterly, "Since this facade of stone-faced killer probably isn't holding up too well right now, a hug would've been nice."

As Mesa cautiously and slowly stepped off the bed to approach Opal, desperately hoping to rescue the situation with an embrace, she quashed his ambitions.

"Too late. Get out."