[private] It's crazy what you'll do for a friend

[Obscene]

I can see through you, see your true colors
Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me

He knows that she could weave her magic and he might not be able to resist her. His hope is that, as his friend, she will not. They gaze at each other and he can feel something breaking deep inside him long before she opens her mouth to speak. It’s a spectacular kind of shattering, one that momentarily turns the scales across his back an otherworldly color as he faces the storm in her eyes. “Have I ever held you back Aela?” He finally asks her quietly but the answer is there, settling like a weight in his stomach.

It feels like drowning.
This strange shattering pain in his chest, the way that shriveled heart reached out one last time only to find the door firmly shut.

Giving all of himself to her was never going to be enough. She was a dreamer. A schemer. A visionary. What they had made here, together, in the Pampas was merely a stepping stone for bigger and greater things. They shared a vision but the meaning behind it differed for each of them. He can’t help but wonder if this path they were on would continue together or would they come a fork in the road? Had they just come to it now? There had always been safety in being awful and they did it so well. They took what they want and nothing seemed to stop them. But when asking it from her? Suddenly everything fell apart.

“Anything is possible.” He repeats, looking at her and wondering where exactly he had gone wrong. He had never searched for her because he had assumed she had not wanted him to. When she had spoken of not wanting to be at risk during the season, he had assumed that she would never be open to the possibility. He had assumed a lot of things, taking Aela for one who wasn’t fond of children. And then she had brought Fyr home and he came to realize that for as well as he knows her…. He doesn’t really know her at all. She was an enigma, a mystery. Obscene loved a good riddle but the feelings that he’s developed for the Empath before him are more complex then he can begin to understand. He doesn’t understand how he can do more for her. Had he not gone to Gale in Hyaline? Had he not gone along with every plot and plan she had? Had he not tried hard enough already? 

He had offered her territories to sack, would have razed Taiga to the ground if she had asked him to. Shall he start a war in her honor? When would it ever be enough for the likes of him?

The Champions name seems to still echo in the air all the louder for the way Aela pointedly ignores his last question. Her silence says enough. He knows deep down that it wasn’t a fair question, that she could have easily thrown it right back at him. Maybe he had always been the problem? He recalls vaguely the warning Wherewolf had given him. He remembers thinking how easy it would be to simply walk away. A fool twice over.  “It’s always been your choice.” He finally says because it has. She’s always been the one behind the reins, pushing him just where she wanted him to be. But always at a distance. Those barriers weren’t easy to cross either when he had so many up himself. “But once made… it’s made.” He says firmly and quietly before finally bringing his red eyes back to the storming waves of hers. 

And exhales slowly despite the way those shattered shards in his chest seem to splinter into even sharper pieces.

“We steal Sickle.” He says as that smirk settles firmly across his dark lips, his expression as cool and unbothered as it usually is. Like nothing had happened at all. Like they hadn’t ended years of exploring each other’s skins. Like it hadn’t hurt at all to lose her, like he doesn't mourn what was once between them like a death.

obscene

@Aela