What's Left Behind

Mairi sits near the fireplace in her home. Her body is bruised. She can still taste the blood and feel the bones snapping between her teeth.
Euan, wrapped in a blanket, quietly makes his way over. He walks slow, still favoring one leg. When he sits beside her, he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have to.
After a long silence, Mairi finally says, "It’s happening more often.”
Euan tilts his head, prompting.
“My rage,” she says. Her voice is low, harsh like gravel. “The red haze. I used to control it. Choose when to use it. But now… now it’s like I don’t have a choice anymore. If I don’t lose myself in it, people die. We die.”
She looks down at her bloodied hands. “And I’m good at it, Euan. I’m too good at it. I-”
Euan signs:
“You saved them.”
She nods. “But I lost a piece of myself every time I had to.” Her voice shakes. “What if there’s nothing left when this is all over? What if all that’s left of Mairi is just the monster she used to be? Just Faoiltiama?”
He pauses. Then signs:
“A monster wouldn’t be asking that question.”
She lets out a bitter laugh, wiping a hand over her face. “I want to be the person you saw in me. The one who walked away from the old ways. But I don’t know if I can do this — be a leader, a protector, a wife — without being her again.”
Euan takes her hand — rough, scarred, trembling — and signs slowly, deliberately:
“You are all those things. And still more.”
“You’re the only one who sees that part of you as a curse.”
She looks away, jaw tight. “Because I know what I become when I stop holding back.”
Euan:
“Then don’t stop. But don’t hate the part of you that fights to keep us alive.”
..