Exactly what passed that night, what cruelties Sharon suffered, are laid out for Mayerling in far more detail, enough detail that his first instinct is to kill the janitor and the adults who taught their children such hate. He wants to extend his cloak around her back in time to prevent any of these traumas from happening despite knowing that is not the manner in which time works, at least not for him. The conversation happens because it happened, yet Mayerling with all his experience and ethics feels that instinct all the same. Sharon's ethics have always been more assertive about protecting herself, and it is clear why. It saddens him deeply within his soul that she knows all this sadness, that she had no one else to stand up for her, not even her mother.
"You stood up for yourself when no one else would," Mayerling says. "You were hurt over and over and over, and when they burned you alive"—he cannot help the anger that comes out with those words—"you had enough: enough pain, enough abuse, enough excuses. Do you think so many people would do differently? Do you think I do not defend myself?
"I did not come to my philosophy overnight, nor do I expect I would have reached it at all had I gone through what you went through, Sharon."
He searches her face to meet her wet blue gaze. "You are allowed to love and to protect yourself, Sharon da Silva, even should and especially should no one else do so," Mayerling declares. "I cannot claim that your actions sit easily with me, nor that I eagerly enjoy the pleasure in your voice as you reflect on those deeds. Yet you have survived when no one ought to have expected it, and I do not hold those actions against you. They reaped the pain and suffering they sewed. You feel what you feel, and I know well that feelings alone should not be judged but with actions. While I know not what all you have done in Trench and now in Folkmore, removed from those circumstances, in all I do know, I believe you have acted as a moral person.
"I do not see a conflict between us on that matter, not one that should tear us asunder."
Her past is her past, and he understands why she would act as she had. Mayerling lifts a heavy brow, as though asking whether there be other aspects of those forty years of revenge that Sharon worries will make him lose faith in and abandon her.
Re: cw; talk of child murder & implied csa
"You stood up for yourself when no one else would," Mayerling says. "You were hurt over and over and over, and when they burned you alive"—he cannot help the anger that comes out with those words—"you had enough: enough pain, enough abuse, enough excuses. Do you think so many people would do differently? Do you think I do not defend myself?
"I did not come to my philosophy overnight, nor do I expect I would have reached it at all had I gone through what you went through, Sharon."
He searches her face to meet her wet blue gaze. "You are allowed to love and to protect yourself, Sharon da Silva, even should and especially should no one else do so," Mayerling declares. "I cannot claim that your actions sit easily with me, nor that I eagerly enjoy the pleasure in your voice as you reflect on those deeds. Yet you have survived when no one ought to have expected it, and I do not hold those actions against you. They reaped the pain and suffering they sewed. You feel what you feel, and I know well that feelings alone should not be judged but with actions. While I know not what all you have done in Trench and now in Folkmore, removed from those circumstances, in all I do know, I believe you have acted as a moral person.
"I do not see a conflict between us on that matter, not one that should tear us asunder."
Her past is her past, and he understands why she would act as she had. Mayerling lifts a heavy brow, as though asking whether there be other aspects of those forty years of revenge that Sharon worries will make him lose faith in and abandon her.