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These are all bits and pieces I've either sent to Tsu, or we may have bantered a bit back and forth on thoughts that go uncompleted here. We may deem some thoughts aren't actually canon and they'll vanish. Whoops.
She hated that her defining quality to others had become everything she didn't have.
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She'd watch him as he worked sometimes, wondering what other thoughts he pushed out of his head in the name of focus. What kind of things did he drown out to be only a gear in the machine?
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Sometimes if he looked like he didn't want to be disturbed she'd leave what were likely redundant notes with his meals, hoping he'd have a good day.
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She never realized how far she'd been let in until someone else made a comment about how serious he was. It had read as very untrue.
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What she needed to do was find something new to focus on. A turn was certainly not enough time to drive her feelings out, but she was going to fester if she didn't try to cut out the rot.
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It had been bothering her for a while. Still, how did she phrase it so they understood? She'd tricked them into liking her because she was an enormous pity party. It didn't feel good to have that as the source.
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"I'm sure it doesn't matter to you if you. Maybe you would like to leave as little of a footprint behind in the minds of others as you could. But I think it would mean something if you were gone - even if it was only one person feeling the empty space you left behind," she didn't look at him as she spoke, instead tracing her hand idly over his lifemate's side. But she cared enough about the thought to say it - and maybe he wouldn't care enough to hear it.
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Others in the kitchens sometimes asked what the tune was. She never realized she'd been humming it until they did, leaving her wondering what sort of catchy, yet unknown, kind of an earworm it was.
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"Do you actually enjoy being around him or are you romanticizing him because he doesn't say anything?" Niika hadn't been expecting the question, and frowned. "He says plenty," she answered simply. The other woman nodded, but the look on her face said she wasn't convinced. "And does he say things that make you think he means it only for you to hear, or that he wouldn't care if you were anybody else?" It was starting to sound like an intervention - and perhaps it was one with good cause. "I just don't want you to hurt yourself over him, because you replaced wanting to be needed by a dragon by believing you are needed by a man who cares more about his work than any one person." It certainly was the reputation he'd earned and not unjustly so.
"I've never thought he needed me," Niika replied, more focused on her work now than she'd meant to hide the statement behind. "Faranth, I don't even think he wants me around sometimes." But now she wondered - was she thinking higher of him than she should have been?