Honey, I'm Home!

Thalia wasn't sure she could muster the same kind of empathy for her family's decisions. They were bound to the same set of morals that she was, ones that they could only loosely interpret based on the actions of their God. It was hard to imagine loosening those visions for her family just because they were happy. There was more to life than just being happy, wasn't there? Duty and faith came first. There were so many things in life that would be made easier if she didn't adhere to those values.  "I see," she breathed simply. It was hard to imagine not judging her father for leaving their family to be with someone he loved. Instead her mother had joined the Abraxas, a true follower despite not being blood. They had left to find answers and she fully believed that was what they had intended to do. There were more important things than even family, Thalia knew that too. That was why she hadn't abandoned Aerie to search for her missing brother - it just wasn't what she was meant to do.

"I'm not sure most of my family is quite so... lenient," Thalia admitted carefully. It was hard to not lie here with Theory and envision Eligos's calculating stare if he saw them lying together like this. All for the greater good, she tried to remind herself, but even that seemed a truth that was stretching too thin now. She wasn't sure she agreed with Theory's sentiment about happiness being a reward for enough suffering. It was hard to imagine, even after all she had gone through and all the Abraxas had gone through, her being worthy of anything quite like happiness. Not after all her God had endured. Surely they were meant to suffer in a similar way before being truly rewarded with the immortality they deserved. But enough of those thoughts. It was hard to untangle thoughts of her faith from her thoughts of Theory, even if it felt they couldn't coexist without strife. There was no Thalia without faith; she couldn't find where it ended nor where it began. It was all-consuming, and made her feel like she couldn't breathe sometimes.

Theory's words weren't entirely surprising, even if they caught her off guard. "I'm sure they do return it," she responded tentatively. She knew Theory was speaking without being direct, and Thalia had no issue doing the same. Addressing her emotions was never an easy thing for her and saying them out loud was an even trickier feat. "Maybe they just don't know how to tell you that."" Theory's next thoughts were exactly one of the things that worried her the most about all of this. "I see myself..." She trailed off, her tongue suddenly heavy in her mouth. "Wherever I need to be. Currently, the Abraxas.. we seek to repair our damaged reputation. We are a valuable as an ally to Abaven." Her mouth was dry. She shouldn't be speaking so freely with Theory, but she didn't know what else to do, though she wouldn't tell her the whole truth. That someday Eligos envisioned the Abraxas wove so finely into the packs that existed here that they wouldn't know what to do without them, doing the work that many of them could not. "Eligos trusts that I am here convincing you of this.. that our futures are better if we work together. Against everything you've heard about my family and what some of our.. wayward family members have done in the past. But, you must know that's not the only reason I came." She must know that, right?