03-15-2021, 02:29 AM
Ryatah
— there's something tragic about you, something so magic about you, don't you agree?
She wants to reach out and touch him, because he is still close enough that she could. If he were not nearly vibrating with that electric anger that he hardly kept harnessed she might have been stupid enough to try. He has never physically hurt her—he might have been the only one that has not, when she really thinks about it. But there is still something that makes her hesitate, an unsettled feeling that keeps her face angled from his and her eyes downcast.
It isn’t him physically lashing at her that she is afraid of, though. She is afraid of him pulling away, of him leaving. She is afraid of him leaving her there empty and aching and wondering what she did wrong, like that day in Nerine.
This time, though, it is not nearly as much of a mystery.
Should she really be surprised that she had pushed him to the point of hating her? Should she really be surprised that finally she pushed someone off that ledge she insisted on keeping them balanced on?
He had told her once that she chooses her romances because she knows that they will not last. That they were safe in the sense that she could remain guarded because they were destined to fail.
And of course, he was right.
He had been the safest of them all, with so little emotion ever managing to slip through, yet that only meant it took greater effort on her part to tear it all apart.
She deserved all of his barbed words and glancing blows. She deserved the contempt in his stare and the venom in his voice. It’s why she finally lifts her gaze to lock it with his, and this time she keeps it there because while she was terrible at so many things and in so many aspects, the only thing she has ever known how to bear is punishment.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” she says, her voice so hushed that it is nearly a whisper compared to his. “I only meant that you have known me for so long. Longer than anyone that is currently alive.” She frowns at that, letting that realization sink in. There is no one else that has known her longer. Not Skellig or Atrox, or even Carnage. Ashhal had been there when she had first come to the valley so many years and lifetimes ago, and it built an ache in her chest to know that.
She meets his eye readily, though her jaw clenches again at his tone of voice. Her throat throbs with the unshed tears that this time never meet her eyes, trying to piece together the puzzle she knows she should have the answer to. It wasn’t her; she knows it couldn’t have been, but she doesn’t know anyone that would care enough to pretend to be her.
Except for one, and while she had no reason to do it other than boredom, she wouldn’t put it past her.
“Desire,” her daughter’s name sounds hollow when she says it, thinking of her beautiful galaxy-spun girl with a sorrow she had not expected to feel. “She’s my daughter and she…” her voice trails off, trying to figure out the best way to say what she wants to. “She can make herself look like almost anyone. Anyone that you are attracted to or that you...love.” The last word sticks on her tongue, like she is hesitant to say it; like she is afraid the very idea that she is implying he loves her will send him away. “She practiced it a lot when she was younger. She would try to look like her father, or Skellig or Atrox.” She pauses again, and she cannot help the cautious smile that ghosts across her lips. “And you.”
But the smile disappears as quickly as it had come, and her eyes finally flit away from his. “I’m sorry she did that. But whatever she told you, it wasn’t true.”
It isn’t him physically lashing at her that she is afraid of, though. She is afraid of him pulling away, of him leaving. She is afraid of him leaving her there empty and aching and wondering what she did wrong, like that day in Nerine.
This time, though, it is not nearly as much of a mystery.
Should she really be surprised that she had pushed him to the point of hating her? Should she really be surprised that finally she pushed someone off that ledge she insisted on keeping them balanced on?
He had told her once that she chooses her romances because she knows that they will not last. That they were safe in the sense that she could remain guarded because they were destined to fail.
And of course, he was right.
He had been the safest of them all, with so little emotion ever managing to slip through, yet that only meant it took greater effort on her part to tear it all apart.
She deserved all of his barbed words and glancing blows. She deserved the contempt in his stare and the venom in his voice. It’s why she finally lifts her gaze to lock it with his, and this time she keeps it there because while she was terrible at so many things and in so many aspects, the only thing she has ever known how to bear is punishment.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” she says, her voice so hushed that it is nearly a whisper compared to his. “I only meant that you have known me for so long. Longer than anyone that is currently alive.” She frowns at that, letting that realization sink in. There is no one else that has known her longer. Not Skellig or Atrox, or even Carnage. Ashhal had been there when she had first come to the valley so many years and lifetimes ago, and it built an ache in her chest to know that.
She meets his eye readily, though her jaw clenches again at his tone of voice. Her throat throbs with the unshed tears that this time never meet her eyes, trying to piece together the puzzle she knows she should have the answer to. It wasn’t her; she knows it couldn’t have been, but she doesn’t know anyone that would care enough to pretend to be her.
Except for one, and while she had no reason to do it other than boredom, she wouldn’t put it past her.
“Desire,” her daughter’s name sounds hollow when she says it, thinking of her beautiful galaxy-spun girl with a sorrow she had not expected to feel. “She’s my daughter and she…” her voice trails off, trying to figure out the best way to say what she wants to. “She can make herself look like almost anyone. Anyone that you are attracted to or that you...love.” The last word sticks on her tongue, like she is hesitant to say it; like she is afraid the very idea that she is implying he loves her will send him away. “She practiced it a lot when she was younger. She would try to look like her father, or Skellig or Atrox.” She pauses again, and she cannot help the cautious smile that ghosts across her lips. “And you.”
But the smile disappears as quickly as it had come, and her eyes finally flit away from his. “I’m sorry she did that. But whatever she told you, it wasn’t true.”
there's something wretched about this, something so precious about this, oh what a sin —
@[Ashhal]