[private] what little that i have to give, i will give it all to you; magnus

[isle]

She stands quietly beneath a midnight sky, though it is empty of any night at all. No stars to wish on or trace the shapes of towering constellations, no moon recognizable by any true definition. There is only a ring of light like an iris in the vast black, a ripple of light as though something bright had been dropped into the sky and drowned there. It is hard to know how many days have passed, how many weeks or months, because in this place where it is always warm and humid, the seasons are too subtle to name.

It is strange, too, because this place had once held so much darkness for her. It was a place that reminded her of Offspring, of too many times where he had come to her in the privacy of their home to tell her he had been disloyal again. They became truths she could see in the red of his eyes long before he ever found the courage to speak them. And Tephra had felt like his for a while, like his memory was everywhere, his choices in every sunrise and sunset. It was the home to his ghost, until at last there was no room left in her heart for even the brokenness he had so carefully built inside her.

It was too full now, filled with the kind of happiness she had never dreamt of, the kind of content she had been sure she was not made for.

It dwindled now though, fading as everything seemed to do in this unending dark. Magnus rarely spoke of the way this affected him, but she could hear it in the weariness of his thoughts, feel it in the strain of their linked immortality. It felt like erosion, like for as long as the sun continued to drown in a midnight sky, so too would Magnus, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

She turns from the dark, heading back the few steps to the shallow cave carved into the base of the volcanic mountain. It was warm here and sheltered, and though once she might’ve shied away from the rivers of burbling fire that crisscrossed like veins across Tephra, she is glad now for the warmth and light they provide.

Her lips find him in a smile, something soft and perpetually shy despite that there has never been any awkwardness between them. They touch the corner of his mouth in a kiss, then trace the curve of his jaw and over his throat, trailing to his chest as she ducks beneath his neck to embrace him. “The lantern birds should come by soon, did you want to come watch with me?” Her voice is soft and warm, and it is no effort at all to let the love she feels for him slip into the sound of it as she smiles again and rubs her cheek against the warmth of his faintly glowing shoulder.

It had been so much brighter before, and she is silently certain that it continues to grow dimmer.
She imagines she can feel it in her own bones, an impossible, nameless weight that fills her marrow with weariness.
But it is not her own pain that she feels, and perhaps that truth is even worse.

She kisses him again, her mouth on the golden curve of his shoulder, and she is sorry for the way it feels so desperate inside her chest. He needn’t know how she worries, how it hurts her to watch this regression of him, this unstoppable erosion. “I love you.” A reminder, and she hopes he doesn’t count all the times she says so, hopes he doesn’t realize these words hide other truths. Please get better, please don’t leave. She doesn’t care that their lives are tethered, that her fate is tied to his even now. She cares that it feels like this hasn’t been enough time, that she was promised lifetimes of loving him and knowing him and this is not that, not yet. Her body shifts beneath his neck, twisting so that her cheek rests beside his mouth again, so that she can feel the warmth of his breath where it heats the rich brown beneath her ear. “Maybe today will be different.” She says, and immediately wishes she hadn’t. Hope is it’s own kind of poison now.

@[magnus]

[magnus]

but she's bringin' the moon and stars to me -

He has done his best to hide the pain from her—but it is difficult, if not impossible, to hide such truths from the other half of his heart. Impossible to pull it away from her when they are so completely tethered. He knows that she can feel the exhaustion in him. The way that his life has shifted to be so grounded by the sun and then to have it ripped away completely. The golden ichor poured from his very veins.

If it were not for her, he is certain he would not have lasted this everlasting night.

But the sun is not his only anchor these days and he feels an ease when she settles against his chest like she belongs there. Like, perhaps, she has always belonged there. Like it had just taken him a millennia of fighting and wearing himself down to find this kind of heaven with her. He smiles, the glow of him radiating out stronger in her presence as he reaches down to press a kiss to her cheek, her throat.

“I love you too,” he murmurs and although he tries to alleviate it, he can hear the gravel in his throat. The soreness and fatigue weaving through his every syllable. A heavy sigh as he shifts, his muscles burning. His gold-flecked eyes close as she settles against him and he lets her warmth fill him, as though she could be the sun that normally fueled him. As though he could simply pull back the light through her.

Perhaps he can.

He feels the hope in her voice as easily as he can feel the fear, but he brushes them both aside. Laughing, the sound rich, he buries his head in her wild mane. “I would take a million days, just like this, with you,” he promises, and he knows the truth of it. He had gone into death fighting tooth and nail before. He had tore himself apart to avoid it—but he would gladly walk into its depth if she was by his side.

“Light or not.”

A smile, something stirring in his gaze as he pulls back to regard her—to study the faint lines of her face that he can see from his weak glow. “I spent a long time in the dark, Isle. I can bear the shadows.”

But when the light begins to creep across the sky—impossible, beautiful—his heart stutters.

Stutters, stumbles, and then stops.

A beat.

And then two.

Tears prick the corner of his eyes as he finally sees her in the light, but no words come.

- Magnus