Honey, honey, you're my favorite drug

She knew she was stubborn, she knew she had a valid reason to be angry and upset, but the longer this went on the more she wondered if holding this grudge was worth all of this stress that was bleeding out into every other part of her life. Constantly sleeping alone, constantly laying awake wondering if Alastor was ever going to come to some sort of sense and meet her half way, constantly searching for any little relief or pleasure to take her mind off of what was going on... It was causing her to fall behind on everything else in her life and she was seeing the additional strain it was putting on her poor daughter as she tried to help where she could and pick up the slack. It wasn't fair to any of them and it was tearing their family apart—for what? For petty pride and hurt feelings? She still believed she had valid concerns over Alastor's behavior and his too close involvement with Relm, but this clearly wasn't showing him the error of his ways. At this point she was at a loss for how to get the point across to him since physical punishment did nothing and now making him jealous and trying to show him how it felt had only backfired as well.

It was later in the evening, the sun just beginning to set, as she finally reached the end of her rope and went looking for him. At this point she wasn't even sure where to find him since he had made himself so scarce, but she knew she had to. As she combed the island looking for him, she tried to figure out what she was going to say or do, but she knew that it would all be wasted anyway. Nothing ever really went as planned with Alastor so she was probably better off just trying to roll with whatever happened when she found him. The only thing she prayed for was that he wasn't actively with Relm when she finally came across him. With her patience this thin and her body so exhausted from a lack of sleep she wasn't sure if she could keep herself from doing something she'd likely come to regret if she saw him with his other woman after all of this. She wasn't going to just bend to whatever Alastor wanted to keep the peace and she did think that they needed to find some new boundaries to keep this kind of thing from happening again, but for now her biggest priority was finding him.

Just when she was about to head off of the island to start searching their other territories, she did manage to find Alastor's trail. She followed it like a predator hunting their prey, winding her way through Elysium's rocky terrain and evergreen forests, until she spotted his familiar ebony and ruby form up ahead. She happened to be behind him, standing in the deep shade of one of the large trees, the light dying around them with just the last hues of red and purple lingering in the last minutes of the sunset. She lingered there for a moment, surprising even herself with how just seeing him again made her chest grip tightly. More than anything she feared that Alastor wouldn't care. That somehow this rift had felt like a blessing to him and he had enjoyed being away with her and instead spending more time with Relm. She had hardly ever felt real fear in her life and the only times in recent memory that she had been truly afraid were the first time that she confronted Alastor about the pink-furred woman and now. Every time because of her. Taking in a breath to steady herself, she stepped out of the shadows and walked toward him. "Alastor," was all she could manage to say as she stopped a couple of feet from him, nearly holding her breath as she waited for him to turn around.

"Manea & Alastor Mendacium"