Broken Pasts and Broken Hearts

Thaddeus smiled sadly as Ayala said what he knew she thought but what he knew in his heart was not true. She was already beginning to understand freedoms. When he had first met her she was a full blow deer in the headlight, she did not know how to talk, how to act, or even how to breath in front of him, who she had considered a master wolf. Now she was talking, acting and even, if only a sliver, feeling. He saw it in her eyes, he saw her face change from blandness to mild interest, which was a far cry from the robot that she once was. And even the fact that she bent her head to eat his offering also showed that her soul was becoming free of the bonds of slavery, for even though, and yes he saw it in her face, she grew sick with the thought of eating 'his' kill she still had done it, and not on a command. He nodded his head at her, after she lifted her head from his kill and then looked her in the eye. "You may not fully comprehend the idea of freedom, but sweet Ayala you are starting to grasp its value. You are here with me, are you not? Who told you to walk in these woods at this very moment? No one, you are your own device, even for the short moment of your understanding of the word, do not sell yourself short, for you are more powerful then you think you are, and as you blossom slowly you shale become more beautiful because of it." He then smiled at her, it had a bit of sadness laced in the thread but mostly it was genuinely happy. "Ayala I would want to be your teacher, for the one reason that I want to be the one that awakens your dormant heart, and free your caged soul. I think you are a most beautiful and unique creature, and trust me when I say it for I have seen much in my travels. I think you are strong from your struggles and that you outshine anyone that had not gone through what you have and survived, both in body and mind, for Ayala your heart and soul is not truly gone, just buried deep in yourself and your past, and the more you taste freedom the less earth cover those parts of you."

And as her words continued on, he grew more confident in his assumption that she was coming into herself, because not only did she say he was wrong in his declaration of failures she was describing the wrongs that where done to herself. She was telling him that just because he head not save those he loved, Rogue was not a failure, but it was the one that was taking that where so. Thaddeus had not thought of it like that. He words struck a cord within him, one that play out his every regret, which played as she said. The he, one with a kind heart had not failed, but instead those that caused pain instead had done so. It was such a simple way to think about it, but it was only known by those on the receiving end of failures, not those that try to stop them but could not...

Rogue smiled at Ayala then, his eyes softening, and his mouth lifting in an easy expression. "I had not thought of it like that, but it makes perfect since, and you Ayala had lifted a large wight off of my heart, and healed a few of the holes that had developed." But at what price was that wisdom given? Was his first thought as he looked into her red eyes, eyes still mostly blank, but slowly filling with those buried parts of herself.