Welcome to Gaia! ::

Shaheen was feeling mildly distraught. The voices in her head were getting worse by each passing day, and she was finding it harder and harder to keep her emotions and feelings in check. Add that combination to the roller coaster ride that was her odd relationship with Shik (if it could even be called that....), and the lack of respect she seemed to garner from any of her fellow clan mates...

Shaheen was pretty much ready to cry again. And Shaheen didn't do crying. Ever.

And so she had spent a lot of time recently alone. A strange and cold void had seemed to settle it's way into the pit of her stomach, and as it was something she'd never experienced before or understood, she felt like perhaps if she kept to herself and ignored those around her it would eventually just go away. Except that it didn't go away. It just got steadily worse, much like her insanity. Maybe it was related. Maybe there was somebody that she could ask, or talk to...

And then she remembered. Lifen, the small horsewoman from conquest. Her self proclaimed confident. She had told the other woman that she would give her an update, and here it was, weeks later, and she had yet to seek the other woman out. Well, now seemed like the best time to do so. After all, she had said she would, and of course, they were also both afflicted by the same illness.

And so she took the the skies, landing quickly in conquest territory, and after much searching, and asking around, and yes, she might have also found time to spar with Zhi as well, the chieftain found herself approaching the artisan, her voice almost hesitant (Shaheen never hesitated, clearly something was wrong), as she called out to the other woman quietly. "Lifen? Are you busy? Do you..have a moment? I think I need somebody to talk to.."

((OOC: Reschedualing this to timeline after inverted haunted house meta ))

She should have been better then this. As a woman of war, a chieftain and role model for her clan, she should have been able to hold her head up high and proud. She should have felt elation over her accomplishments, a heightened sense of glory over every battle won, over every small victory she accomplished. But instead she felt nothing but misery, and pity for herself. This affliction combined with living in a strange new place was trying on her, wearing her down inch by inch, stripping away her mental stability as well as her strength. But if anybody could understand what she was going through, she was sure it would be the conquest artisan, the woman who Shaheen could honestly say was the most level headed of horsemen she had ever met.

She made her way inside the tent, having a quick glance around before finding a place to seat herself.

"Thank you." She murmured, keeping her voice from showing any of her true emotion just yet.

The world on her shoulders? No, just her own insecurities, though there were certainly other factors as well.

"Have you ever felt like every decision you made was a poor one?" She started out by asking, after taking a moment to ponder what to say.

Shaheen felt much too large to be sitting at such a small table, and her wings folded in behind her as tight as she could make them so as not to crowd things further. The cup of tea was eyed speculatively. She'd never actually tried the beverage before, but she assumed Lifen would not give her something that she might not enjoy. She lifted the dainty cup carefully, and rose it to her lips for a small sip, promptly burning her tongue on the hot liquid. Grimacing, she put the cup back down on the table a little harder then necessary, the taste barely even registering as she was far too concerned with how the inside of her mouth had just been scalded due to her own stupidity, which she tried to mask by pretending nothing had just happened, her face stony and blank.

It was a relief to hear that Lifen often found herself in a similar frame of mind, and she nodded slowly, though Shaheen wasn't sure whether her own situation related well with the conquest woman's. Choice of closest friend...Yes, Shik had possibly been that to her. He knew more about her true self then anybody else.

"Ah, it has just been a struggle, since coming here." She replied, hands reaching out for her cup again but this time just resting on either side of it. "I feel as though I have lost the respect of many. Things are so different now. I do not feel as if I hold any position of authority any longer. I have no right to be upset when those who would have followed me before now treat me with disdain." Except there was one that had always treated her that way, and it was him that her mind kept coming back to.

"He told me that he wanted me, and I told him I never wanted to see him again." She just blurted it out, out of nowhere. The true thing that had been resting heavily on her mind. "I think it is for the best, but I question my decisions often, lately....."

Shaheen stared at the water for a second before shrugging and taking a sip. Of course it meant that she had to admit she had hurt herself in what she considered to be an embarrassing way, but she was sometimes willing to accept the fact that she had done something stupid, and was not always too proud to turn away help when offered.

She simply nodded at Lifen's response to the first portion of her problem, the part that wasn't really all that important and was mostly just Shaheen complaining and grousing for the sake of doing so. They had all had to make adjustments, things were different for everyone now. Perhaps the nobles and the Priestesses and the Chieftains and Sages felt those changes most keenly of them all, but that didn't mean they were the only ones who might be suffering.

"It is just not something I am used to yet." She stated with a wave of her hand to show that it wasn't really all that important, before getting down to the good stuff.

Boys.

"Unfaithful?" Her lips quirked up ever so slightly at the corners. "That would imply that he was obligated to be faithful to me in the first place. No, our relationship was...very open?" Not that Shaheen had anybody else she had been seeing on the side, but she had never expected Shik to just be hers alone. She was sure he had been with others. Likely many others. It did make her uncomfortable to think about, however, so she put it from her mind.

"No, I just..." Why had she told him to go away, again? To think back on it now she could hardly even come up with a fathomable reason, though at the time it had seemed like a good idea....Oh wait, right.

"He lied to me. He doesn't want me, he just says he does in an attempt to manipulate me, to make me his before discarding me for somebody else just as quickly. And I just decided I didn't like it anymore." She shrugged before continuing. "I no longer wished to be used by him, or be a part of whatever games he was playing." But there was more then that, a feeling that twisted in her gut when she thought about him too much, but one that she chose to ignore.

"I question whether I was too harsh in my decision to cut him out of my life completely, however, because he is...a friend, and maybe I owed it to him to at least still be that..."

All this thinking was making her head hurt.

Shaheen tried to follow Lifen's train of thought spoken out loud, but with much difficulty. She got a little bit lost after "complex in it's simplicity", but nodded along as if she understood, and that the artisan was hitting it all on the mark. She did, however, scoff out a laugh, a smile spreading across her face. "Seriously dumb. Yes, I agree."

....But what did that make her, for going along with it all up until this point? What did that make her, for even debating whether she had made the right decision, for wondering if she had been to hasty.

Was she stupid for wanting him back?

The chieftain visibly grimaced with Lifen's suggestion of coming clean. There was no question that she had a lot of feelings that she kept buried deep inside, refusing to dig them out and inspect them closer, for fear of what she might find.

"You are wise, Lifen. And I will consider what you have suggested." She finally responded, after sitting silent for a moment, almost sullenly while she mulled over what the other woman had to say on the matter. "Our friendship has always been a tenous thing, and for a long time I considered him to be more of a rival...." She began, as though she might actually sit and explain the odd relationship her and Shik had had with each other, even as children. But then she just stopped, her words halting, and she offered Lifen an almost apologetic smile.

"Never mind, that was a long time ago, when circumstances were much more different then they are now. I will seriously think on it." That seemed to be all she could agree to at this point.

"And how are you fairing, Lifen?" It felt like a time as good as any to change the subject off of herself, the tension that was mounting on her from overthinking the situation becoming too much. She needed a distraction away from her own troubles for a time. "Is there a man that drives you to such turmoil of mind as Shik does for me?"

Yes, she wanted to continue boy talk, but she wanted the artisan to dish on her own personal troubles as well, if she even had any.

Lifen might have thought that Shaheen was animate, but she was getting to witness a side of the chieftain that few other would ever get to. Shaheen was opening herself up, as much as she was willing to, and more then she had ever done with anybody else. It just felt right, to have one person she could speak with about her problems, though only if she could return the favor for her dear little artisan friend and hear about hers as well. She couldn't guarantee to have as much good advice to give as she received, but she would give it her best shot.

She listened to Lifen's words with rapt attention, nodding in a way that urged her to continue whenever she paused. When she got to the word "them," however, and said it in that way, that way that meant something special...well, it gave Shaheen a small jolt, and she sat up straighter, golden orbs blinking as she shifted a little in her seat as though suddenly uncomfortable, her cheeks warming up slightly.

"Oh so you...you are in much the same situation as me. Have you...have you spoken about it, as you say I should with...him?"