@vdova ; video

[waytodie]

[Her hair is in two messy twin braids. Her eyes are glassy. The sharp-eyed might notice she's probably, definitely drunk. The less-so might just assume she's overly tired. Her tongue presses into her cheek as she considers how to start this one, but in the end she just rips the bandaid off quickly: ]

So, tell me, how is it that you handle grief?

[She probably won't be elaborating on why she's asking, unless she has a certain level of familiarity with you, but you can try. People closest to her probably already know what this is really about: Her sister is gone. From Moorecroft. From Etraya. From the top side of the dirt. Gone and back to dead, and Yelena is spiraling.]

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[waytodie]

I can't be who I was... I don't even want to be, really... but I do not know who else to be. Who I am without those things that defined so much of my life.

[And in a strange way, that does loop back into her family, too. Her sister. Her parents. They were all involved in Dreykov's schemes, in their own ways.]

[revengeisalie]

[ Once again, Rin mulls this over.

She, too, feels like that. Who, really, is she, without her family, without he dojo -- everything her life was before that fateful night, ripped away from her.

And yet, she is still trying to honor their memories. She thinks about Manji, too, who surely must still be thinking about his sister. About Doa, talking about the village she came from.

She even thinks about Anotsu's words, about parents who pass on their grudges to their children. Go too far in anything, and it will echo down the generations. ]

I think... [ She hesitates. ] I think no matter what we do, we always carry the things that defined us within us.

Maybe... maybe the pain is proof of that.

[ Even if she has often loathed it. Loathed her own weakness, too, chastised herself for crying like a child.

But maybe there's something to what Manji said. That it would be sadder if she forgot too easily.

She misses him. ]

[waytodie]

[She's probably right. Yelena is sure of that, really. There is no way the Red Room will ever stop informing things about her, that it will ever truly not be a part of her, because all of the lessons she learned within those walls are in her head, forever. The skills won't disappear, because she still uses them all the time, even if she is trying to somehow be better than she was under Dreykov's thumb.

Her parents, the things they instilled in her when they were all still living in Ohio. The way Natasha was always so protective of her. Those things have lived with her for years, too.

She frowns thoughtfully as she considers her words, but in the end she nods her agreement.]

Perhaps you are right...

[revengeisalie]

[ Oh.

Oh, she was trying to be all zen and accepting about this, but now she's made herself cry. ]

I have so often lain awake at night, wishing to have my parents back. But... I know it's not going to happen. N-nothing... nothing will bring them back.

[waytodie]

I am sorry you know this kind of pain, too... [Her parents are still alive, but it's similar. Enough that she thinks they feel very much the same.] I suppose we all feel it eventually... death is... one of the only constants in the world. [Every world, even.]

[revengeisalie]

[ Okay, get a grip, Rin. She dries her tears. ]

D-Death... and the passage of time, huh? Something like that?

[ Don't think about how every year you live, your parents will have been gone longer. ]

[waytodie]

Something like that. [She nods, something about it seems... a little final. Like the conversation has dwindled down to where it might lie for now. But it's the kind of talk that lends to continuing at another time. Created an open-door for discussions of a similar nature in the future.]