The Fateful Heart

Honest. She said she would be more honest.

Evaline paused, wondering if she should say the next question out loud, but of course, honesty won out.

"Do you want me to point things out as they come?" she finally asked.

James looked over at her, not sure what she meant.

“You mean like, if I apologize too much?” he asked. “Or do you mean... other things?”

"Things," she repeated, fiddling with her hands behind her back. "I don't know. Honest observations about you."

“Oh,” James replied, pausing for a moment in thought.

“That’s fine, I guess.”

Evaline glanced over at James, already feeling the first honest observation blurt out of her mouth.

"Is it fine?" she said. "You don't sound very confident."

Somewhere along the way, it appeared she had shifted the spotlight away from her and on to him.

James felt himself, inwardly, beginning to prepare himself. Thicken his skin. Prepare for the worst, so he could be pleasantly surprised if he was wrong.

“I’m not,” he admitted, keeping his outward appearance and tone unfazed, though he could feel his mind was already readying itself to take incoming blows.

“I want to hear what you have to say, but I’m sure you can understand how daunting the uncertainty can be.”

It suddenly dawned on Evaline that maybe James took words to heart. It made sense; he constantly used words of positive affirmation, and he likely sought for the same treatment. Giving him the opposite—words of depreciation—may hurt him.

He appeared to be tough, so this was an idea that was hard to accept right away. She would have doubted this some more, but after peering in his journal, now she wasn't so sure.

Had she accidentally hurt him more in the past than she thought?

Why James wanted to keep being her friend, she didn't know. He probably wanted to hear nice words back, and she couldn't even do that very well.

Evaline stared at the ground in front of her, trying to figure out what to say.

"I can understand that," she said carefully, although it was partially false since they both likely responded to honest remarks differently. "I'll try to be more honest, but I won't say it bluntly."

At least, she'll try to. It was often easier to just say what was on her mind rather than figuring out how to say things nicely.

Honesty once again won out her next words.

"I'm sorry if I've hurt you with my words in the past," she quickly said before she'd regret it. "I'm sure it has happened. I... didn't think it would bother you."

James had no idea what exactly it was that he’d done to let on that he was more sensitive than he seemed, but he didn’t like how quickly she’d caught on. Hw knew he hadn’t exactly avoided the truth, but he’d tried to dance around it, and even if he had told her without shame, he hadn’t expected her to try to change, and especially not apologize.

He didn’t know why he felt so shocked? So ridiculously shaken?

No that wasn’t quite true. He had a feeling he knew why, he just didn’t want to think about. Not at all.

He was barely managing to keep his usual composure, but hw was managing. And in the back of his mind, whacking himself over the head for the fact that it was so difficult to keep a calm eterior over something so trivial.

And of course, he had to figure out how to reply.

How was he supposed to say anything? Wasn’t this conversation supposed to be about Evaline’s notes?

“It’s—“ he started to say on impulse, but he stopped himself, even though it pained him to. He took in a deep breath.

“I can hardly remember what those things were anymore, anyways,” he said a little too quietly. “Don’t worry about it. I forgive you.”

Evaline wasn't sure she believed James. She explicitly remembered reading in his journal that he kept wondering if he did something wrong, and even though he didn't know what he did, he casted blame on himself. How could someone cast blame on themselves without knowing why? How could he not understand that she was the one who was flawed?

She said she was going to be more honest and point things out to him as they come. And right now, she wanted to say: "I don't believe you."

But she didn't. Sometimes being honest wasn't a good thing. Lies were necessary sometimes.

"Okay," she said instead, hoping that the doubt didn't show in her eyes looking ahead. "I believe you."

It didn't mean that she wouldn't try being nicer in the future, though. He didn't have to admit she hurt his feelings for her to recognize this and learn to be better.

James looked at Evaline, trying to read her expression. She said she believed him, but did she? Was she annoyed? Angry? He wasn't sure. Maybe this was one of the things that bothered her about him. He didn't know.

He let a small bout of silence pass before changing the subject a little.

"I... I noticed you were pretty hard on yourself in your letter," he said. "I hope you don't think that I think those things about you too."

Evaline sat on her own thoughts for while before James interrupted the silence. She almost forgot that, just a little bit ago, she was terrified to have this conversation. Yet here she was, pondering about James's life.

A small wave of panic went through her as she realized that now the spotlight was back on her.

James thought she was hard on herself... Was she? That implied that she didn't come with problems and instead was too critical of herself. Evaline denied a lot of things, but at this point of her life, she just accepted that she was... well...

Messed up.

She felt her heart rate increase a little as the two of them kept walking ahead, sand crunching under their feet. She just... didn't know what to say. Could she choose to not say anything and just start listening already?

Maybe... not yet.

Maybe James would start understanding if she stopped holding back as much.

"That's a big statement," she said blankly. "For not really knowing me."

"Perhaps," he answered. "There's a lot I still don't know about you. And I don't doubt that you have issues, but I think we both do. We're both messed up. And I don't think we have to measure that."

Evaline glanced at James, trying to see what she could gather from his expression.

We're both messed up, he said. She wondered what that implied: what his problems were, what he was trying to hide, what he was recovering from.

She didn't quite say what her problems were, but she had expressed the magnitude enough for it to not be something they could easily shake off. James putting himself on the same level of her did make her wonder.

It wasn't a competition. But it was sad.

"We make quite a dysfunctional pair then, don't we?" she said plainly.

James breathed hard through his nose and smiled weakly.

"I guess so," he said, looking back over to her. "But I much prefer it to being dysfunctional alone."

WE DID IT, FOLKS!

WE REACHED THE END OF PAGE 99!

If you've come this far, I'm sure you have questions, so here's an FAQ:

• Yes, @soundofmind and I are obsessed and crazy.
• Yes, we binged basically every night... except for a 3 week hiatus.
• Yes, it only took 10 weeks to get this far.
• Yes, this is (probably) the longest and fastest roleplay that exists in YWS.
• Yes, we are not sure if this is more roleplay than storybook, or more storybook than roleplay.
• Yes, it's just the two of us.
• No, we have no idea what the word count is. NEARLY 232K WORDS HOLY SMOKES
• Yes, we are too lazy to check. But @Vincian isn't.
  
  • Pages 1-10: 20,208
  • Pages 11-20: 15,625
  • Pages 21-30: 21,251
  • Pages 31-40: 22,219
  • Pages 41-50: 23,276
  • Pages 51-60: 29,084
  • Pages 61-70: 22,570
  • Pages 71-80: 21,011
  • Pages 81-90: 24,583
  • Pages 91-99: 31,855
  • Running Total: 231,862 words
• Yes, planning for pages 1-80 was made on the whim.
• Yes, planning past page 80 got so intense, we ended up making 2 pads and a club.
• Yes, we made so many likeable NPCs on the whim that we have grown attached to and may have been sad to leave.
• Yes, we threw our characters in here with minimal planning, and without realizing their uncanny chemistry.
• Yes, James and Evaline will get an eventual happy ending. Maybe. Hopefully. Yes. Absolutely. Because this is the happy timeline.

What is the longest binge?

15.3k words over a 12-hour collab window (in a time span of about 30 hours), on page 97.

What is the word count on the shortest post?

2 words.

What is the word count on the longest post?

7.5k words, but broken down into 2 posts just because it's easier on the eyes.

At what point did this roleplay turn into romance?

Page 28, with this Gru meme here to give you a tl;dr.

Spoiler

What is the most needlessly dramatic scene?

Everything mage camp related, starting in page 80, ending in page 85. And yes, you can blame the three teenage girls.

What is a scene that you least suspected would happen?

Post-mage-camp on page 88 when Evaline manipulates James to figure out his story, and somehow the conversation turns to birthday party planning.

What was the longest scene?

With no timeskips in between? Page 25 to page 41 consisted of wholesome hours, two truths and a lie that lasted for 10 pages, a dramatic hug, and the 5 Stages of Grief.

What was the most angsty scene?

Probably when we almost murdered our characters here, in pages 26-27.

What was the first sign of the 'crackening', aka a term invented by Carina that signified that one of them was finally opening up and communicating?

gotta be when eve n james were playfighting haha-totes-not-flirting but eve def thinks he was and was all waggly brows let's touchie and james was all "bro, no touchies, i ouchies, sorry u can't hug me, but let's communicate" (page 74)

—Carina

What is the best out-of-context quote?

Could a concussion completely erase your memory of horses?

—James, page 4

What's a quick summary of this roleplay?

Neither of them really had any idea what they were doing, did they? They pretended to, but really, they were both lost.

—James, page 97

we force them to communicate (eventually) like people in healthy relationships do

—soundofmind

two wanted traitors with opposite personalities pretend to not have any emotions and somehow still become friends

—Carina

>:(

—Evaline, across all the pages

And last but not least:

No, we are not yet finished.