IC Inbox

[youjustgot]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, MERLIN. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 135.18.129.14 *** Merlin has joined 135.18.129.14 <merlinofcourse> ⌁˚⊹ You have reached Prince Merlin ⊹˚⌁ <merlinofcourse> I know how to use computers now~

Comments

[youjustgot]

[Ah, Merlin can only imagine how glorious his mane is going to look after this. Normally the idea of having a mane at all would bother the hell out of him, but...well, he's had it awhile now, hasn't he? And it is pretty great...]

Oh absolutely.

[Was there any doubt?]

Hanna is...constantly questioning himself, he wants to feel like you truly want him with you. And I...can't imagine any better way than spending THE day of love with him and him alone.

[missleadingquestions]

Then it's settled! That was even easier than I thought it would be.

[She pauses again, though, before paying particular attention to what isn't-quite-yet-but-could-become-a-knot. With the conditioner, the tangle is combed through easily, after Maya massages it between her fingers.]

Do you... know why he feels that way?

Does he talk to you about me?

[Maya and Hanna, after all, talk to each other about him.]

[youjustgot]

[Does he talk to him about her indeed-]

Low self-esteem.

[Merlin says it so matter-of-factly while he examines his claws.]

His mindset is like the exact opposite of mine, I guess you could say. Where I believe I'm great and people can't get enough of me, Hanna struggles with the idea that anyone wants to hang around him at all and seems to think we just humor him half of the time. Which is...absolutely ridiculous, but the mind is a cruel creature.

You're doing wonderfully, by the way. [He's referring to the almost-knot.] I appreciate that you didn't tug, well done.

[missleadingquestions]

Oh— thanks.

I used to do this a lot.

[There's some kind of strange, hollow melancholy in the way she says that, but as always, Maya moves on without leaving Merlin any time to contemplate it.

There's a part of her that sees now that... She and Hanna really are so similar. But so are she and Merlin; just like him, she's not about to admit her low self-esteem.

She does, however, reach over to grab something and then tap Merlin's nails with a brush that appears to be just for the purpose of cleaning claws, a wordless suggestion.]

...I guess I didn't see it before.

[ When he'd asked her out in the first place, Maya had been scared... for a lot of reasons. They were so similar. They got along so well. And worse than that, Hanna said the very same things Dandy had— albeit in his own goofy, nerdy way. Maya'd been so terrified that she'd made him feel that way, manipulated him into it with her mermaid wiles. And she'd missed it, too— sure, she knew he'd admired her, but she hadn't noticed it had become something real until he'd said so.

She'd worried she'd wanted not to be alone so badly that she'd suckered the first person who'd really seemed to like her in a while without question into.... well, worshipping her.

But things had gone well since then, and Hanna still seems to feel the same. So that hesitation he'd shown when he'd asked her out— was it really because she'd manipulated him? Or... did he actually feel he wasn't worth dating in the first place?]