03-21-2021, 08:57 PM
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.
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]