DESPOINA
What would he do if he saw the real her?
What would he say if she shifted here and now—if she pulled the hellhound from behind her breast bone and put it there for the world to see? Specifically, for him to see? Would he be the one to spook? She doubts that, staring at the dark of his eyes and the way that the shadows curl up from the width of his back. She cannot imagine that he has ever been afraid of anything, and she imagines that it’s for reasons far different from her own. How thin the line between her sacrificial despair and someone’s true courage.
The thought remains just that though—a thought—and she merely stands still. She summons enough of her spirit to keep grounded, to remain still before him when everything within her chest is thrashing and wild. To flee would be a wondrous thing, she thinks, as even the very thought strikes her as very wrong.
“That’s true,” she answers in her voice of filigree and glass. “The world is such a heavy place.” She tips her head back, gulping the cool night air and feeling no relief from it. Has he felt the crushing weight of it, she wonders. Has he looked into placid waters and felt himself drown above them? She has. She does.
The next question catches her off guard and she does not have the wherewithal to hide the surprise from her features. She stumbles a little when she finally does offer it up to help,
“D-D-Des,” she swallows. “Despoina.”
It sounds like such a sad, whimpering thing on her tongue and, not for the first time, she is ashamed of it. Ashamed of the name given to her by herself and the sorrow that permeates every syllable.
(Better than the non-name given to her by a mother who had thought first to crush her throat.)
She slides her dark gaze up to find his, searching and wondering why she came up empty handed.
I guess the sound of your voice in the aching will just have to do