#so cathartic seeing Jade actually go at Kit verbally and when sparring on that beach

[chenpire]

I keep thinking about tanthamore from Jade's pov because I feel the deepest gay sympathy for this women like she's so restrained. She's grown up falling ass over kettle in love with someone who is off limits and betrothed to someone else, they're not equals in more than one way, because Kit outranks her but also because Kit is an oblivious obnoxious brat (affectionate) so she lacks the emotional maturity and combat skills to be a reliable partner to Jade even if it weren't for their status incompatibility. Jade probably doesn't think Kit is aware that there is a thing between them, and probably assumes it doesn't consume Kit quite the way it does her, that Kit just needs her because she's familiar and ever present, and because she has hang ups about people abandoning her. When she's trying to tell Kit she's leaving, primary to pursue her dreams but almost certainly on some level to protect her heart, you can see how everything about Kit in that moment is making it as difficult as possible for her; hanging off her, looking like that, saying nothing has to change and making fun of her fiance like he's barley relevant to their life together, causing a scene and going to hang performatively off her fiance who she was just making fun of in the aftermath. The way everything suggests this is always the way with Kit, that she makes things difficult for Jade by her very nature. Like she kisses Jade goodbye because it's clearly something she's always wanted to do and this might be her only chance, so she does, because Kit runs on instinct a lot of the time, but even if it isn't her intention, kissing Jade once and disappearing from her life, leaving her with the memory of what that feels like only to never have it again when Jade's been terminally in love with her for years, is borderline cruelty. And Jade is also sitting there with the knowledge that Kit can't actually defend herself, and it's kind of Jade's fault she thinks she can, but also the fact that Kit has never noticed, or addressed anything between them when the ball is essentially permanently in her court because of their difference in status...like Jade is clearly frustrated with Kit most of the time but it is a miracle she is not absolutely seething. 'Expert on breaking my heart' indeed, it's like Kit was designed to do so I'm so-