adira's playlist (critical role au | adira x ethan)

[feralchase]

i. flames - tedy ; 'i trust no one, it's a habit. [...] but when i'm near you, i feel flames.'
----- adira has never known how to trust. she finds that it's easier to keep people at arm's length, because then they won't be able to hurt her-- and she won't be able to hurt them. her parents, her brothers, her mentors at the academy-- all of them betrayed her trust early on. she thought she shut off that part of her brain that even dares see others as anything other than a means to an end. some of them though? they slip in through the cracks in her armor and set her ablaze.

ii. run - awolnation ; 'i am a human being, capable of doing terrible things. run.'
----- adira is a half-elf, but you get the idea. she will do terrible, terrible things for those she cares about, no matter the cost to her soul. she will commit atrocities to save others from doing the same. the way she sees it is her soul is already damaged, so what's a little more trauma? if it means protecting someone else from suffering the way she does, she will not hesitate.

iii. through the valley - shawn james ; 'i walk beside the still waters and they restore my soul, but i can't walk on the path of the right because i'm wrong.'
----- her hands are not clean. she has done what she must to survive, fleeing from the soltryce academy and the cerberus assembly before she got in too deep. not before they scarred her, mentally and physically, but before anyone could truly dig their claws into her and fully wrap her up in that world. she's healing, slowly, but she hasn't yet gotten to the point where she believes she's deserving of anything but the underworld she's found herself in. it'll be a while before she looks at her palms and sees clean skin, and not the blood on her hands.

iv. nfwmb - hozier ; 'nothing fucks with my baby, nothing can get a look in on my baby.'
----- once adira loves you, she'll kill for you. she will go to the ends of the earth to make people pay. if anyone touches a hair on his head, they're dead. that's it. no one fucks with what's hers and gets away with it, end of story.

v. neptune - sleeping at last ; 'if brokenness is a work of art, surely this must be my masterpiece. [...] i wanna love you, but i don't know how.'
----- finding beauty through the pain. roses blooming from barren ribcages. broken people find each other and try to make their broken pieces fit together; some sort of jagged, mismatched jigsaw puzzle. a terrible work of art; terribly beautiful or beautifully terrible. adira wants to learn to love, wants to let him in, but she doesn't know how.

vi. the sailor song - autoheart ; 'let that be a lesson to me; think not with my heart but with my head. but i never really had it in me, did i?'
----- adira tries very hard to make every decision with her head. there's no room for decision making based on how she feels. she has to be calculating and level-headed. she can't risk losing control because losing control means vulnerability. the only problem is her emotions are so very overwhelming most of the time, it's hard to bury it deep enough to ignore. the anger, and thirst for revenge. and the way her pulse stutters when he slides up next to her from the shadows.

vii. don't rush me - tedy ; 'maybe one day i'll love you, but I don't think I know what love is. [...] oh, won't you hold my hand and get me through the night?'
----- all she needs is time, to learn to love and be loved in return. to let someone see the darkest parts of her, to let him know the secrets she keeps tucked away. she knows he needs time, too. in the meantime, he'll keep watching over her in the dark and she'll keep holding tight to his hand when his eyes wander toward the stars.

viii. home ii - dotan ; 'broken stones, broken lightning. this house of doubt is all we know.'
----- home is a foreign concept to adira. her childhood house never felt like a home, not the way people describe home. the closest she's felt to home is working in the shadows for the myriad, with her partner in crime. she's not sure if it's the jobs and the adventure and the income that gives her a sense of home or if it's him.

ix. i'll be good - jaymes young ; 'i've been cold, i've been merciless, but the blood on my hands scares me to death. maybe i'm waking up, today. i'll be good, i'll be good and i'll love the world like i should.'
----- she's really trying to be better. adira is not a bad person. but that does not make her a good person. she wants to heal, she wants to make amends for all the terrible things she's done. she wants to return to her hometown and not feel the bitter taste of iron on her tongue when she passes by her childhood home.

x. latch (cover) - kodaline ; 'i'm latching on babe, now i know what i have found.'
----- against all better judgement, adira's stuck on ethan. she's not going anywhere without a fight, until they decide the weight of the world on their shoulders is far too much for even the gods to carry and they're better off parting ways.