all the beautiful conditions of a man up in flame; shiya

[Shiya]

Deep down all you want is love
The pure kind we all dream of

Shiya watches with a gleam in her viridian eyes how Magnus dips his head down to her boy. There’s an easiness in the way he confronts the two of them, addressing her as though years haven’t separated their last engagement. Despite the sorrow shackled around her ankles, Shiya manages to still smile. Even as her mind continues to swim with ideations of suicide, Magnus provides enough distraction to talk her off the ledge. His whiskey voice, husky as it has ever been, is a balm to her pain. His company gives her hope before she catches herself.

Always a foolish girl.

The muscles of her jaw coil beneath her taut skin as she clenches uncertainly. It would be easier to run away and avoid his warm gaze, to rip off her ears so she didn’t have to listen to the honeyed words that touch his lips. It’s so easy to fall into a spell around him, but she fights it with her entire soul because there is no such thing as true happiness, fairytale endings, or love. Friendship? She doesn’t even know the word.

Swallowing down the lump in her throat, she manages to sweetly thank him although she has never thought herself to look good. Maybe, perhaps when she was young she had days of feeling fierce and beautiful, but that was before she was beaten down and torn apart and a mother to rogue, defected children. That was before life destroyed her and back when she thought she could ever have a life story like mother and father.

”I suppose the plague has not yet touched you?” She is immune, but her lips do not form the confession. It would tie into a question of how, and she would be forced to admit that she helped to resurrect Pangea for Carnage. Would that make her terrible? Still a monster? There’s nothing worse or lower than where her life is now. For this reason, she almost does, in fact, tell Magnus, but something holds her back. Perhaps it’s the boy innocently peering up at her. Willing to refocus the conversation away from herself, she asks, ”With the Gates gone, where are you now?”

SHIYA

But we cannot escape the past,
so you and I will never last

original html by Jassal


@[magnus]