He is nearly blind with the poison now, with the blood.
It stings, but in a way that feels nearly good—a sharp-edged pain that he recognizes as his own. He wants to lean into it further, wants that knife to bite into the skin until he gasps. It is what he deserves, he thinks, and there’s something like joy to be found in getting just that. Something like joy to know that he is giving that punishment to himself so that Altar does not have to sully her hands in doing the task.
But she says his name and it drags him back from the precipice, catches him just before he plunges over.
The sharpness in her voice stings in a way that his poison never could and he coughs up blood, closing his eyes so she would not have to look upon all the ways that he has destroyed himself at her feet. At the way that he gladly broke himself open just to soothe her own rage—how he would do it, again and again.
She touches and he doesn’t recoil, even though he is expecting the same ice to greet him. It is still there, but it is milder and nearly sweet. It is a healing touch that takes the bite out of the pain he feels. Partially because of the actual way it slowly heals him but mostly because she would dare touch him at all.
His breathing slows as the poison slowly recoils further in his chest.
He feels it slowly pull back into him and the bleeding even slows.
The foam still flecks the edges of his mouth, blood dried, and he rises, shaking, his body a map of tremors and fault lines. He doesn’t lift his head to look at her, doesn’t dare to look upon her, but he stands.
“I’ll go,” he finally manages, knowing she wouldn’t want to look at him any longer.
Knowing that he would remain hidden in the shadows, where he could watch and try to protect her.
(Not that she needed protecting, not with him gone.)
turn your head toward the storm that’s surely coming along
@[altar]