we're alone, just like you said, aureus

[basilica]

basilica

Would it have hurt less if the heart were weaker?
Would it have hurt less if not for the heart’s tremendous capacity for pain?

She makes no attempt to stop herself from flinching, recoiling as if he has physically struck her. She makes no attempt to spare his feelings. Let him see how he has hurt her. Let him see the physical manifestation of the ruin he has wrought.

Her eyes burn with the threat of tears and her throat spasms with the threat of sobs but she swallows these down. Because this is difficult enough to navigate as it is, she thinks, she does not need to make it harder for herself. So she presses her mouth into a resolute line and exhales a shuddering breath.

It is not difficult to remember the children they had been. How delighted they had been by their similar magic, the new color their individual glows made when combined. How comforted their journey together had been, though neither of them had any particular destination in mind. It had been nice simply to walk in step with a friend.

How painful it is to learn now that they had never been friends. And she wonders why he had pretended they were. Why bother? What purpose could there have been for it?

She will leave. She knows that. She will not stay where she is not wanted. But there is something she must ask first.

“Why are you doing this?” she asks, voice shaking. “What did I ever do to you?”

heaven's gate had
such eloquent graffiti

@[aureus]