05-28-2021, 07:18 PM
stifled the choice and the air in my lungs;
better not to breathe than to breathe a lie
Tiercel’s haunted eyes close as her lips touch his skin. She feels like a dream, her mouth leaving a trail of glittering stars under his cheek, and he tries to count the number of times he has prayed, wished, begged for this moment. He loses track easily, and he can’t figure out if it’s because the number is too high or if it’s because she erases his thoughts with each sweeping touch. He promises himself that he will never neglect her again, never forget how important she is to him, never take her touch and presence and affection for granted.
“I missed you,” she says, and his eyelids flutter open. Her confession is as much a strange thing to him as it is to her. Their relationship had begun with her emptiness, her ability to turn a cold shoulder to the world. He had been (still is, as exhausted as he feels now) full to the brim with emotions, a whole rolling sea of them that crashed against his insides. They had chanted to be set loose, and Islas’s star-gifted black hole had been a place he could release them. Yet he’s assumed her emotions are fabricated from his, that her love and empathy for him had been echoes of how he’s felt for her.
But she tells him she’s missed him, that she’s been afraid, and Tiercel can’t imagine his emotions have enough power to reach across worlds. He wants to tell her that he’s missed her every day, but the reality is that he has no idea how many days have passed or what day even looks like anymore. The Underworld had its own concepts of time, and it did not include the sun rising and falling. There was only the stark white light burning his eyes, and his deaths to keep track of time. And even this number he lost track of, like the times he has prayed for Islas.
Instead, he says, “I missed you beyond words,” and he doesn’t have to place the loss he had felt into her darkness, because he knows she feels at least a fraction of it on her own.
Tiercel falls quiet as she begins to speak of their child (“She,” Islas says, and his chest tightens at the thought of a daughter). Marni had been older by the time he was born, and so he really only has Eyas to base his knowledge of daughters or sisters. His winged triplet had been quite the experience… and one reason why he had fled his family at his young age. The dun quickly hopes Kamaria will love him more than Eyas had, though sometimes he wonders if his sister ever loved him at all.
They’re foolish thoughts, especially with such a happy day as his reunion with Islas, but he can’t help the way his firstborn dredges up his memories of the past. Tiercel’s ragged throat chuckles alongside her softer laugh, but he can’t stop the regret that soaks into his pale eyes and the air around them. He’d abandoned her right when she needed him the most — through childbirth, through the worst of the eclipse, through the newborn days — and now he’s somehow back when things have gotten easier.
A heavy sigh leaves his chest, and he turns to push his face into the soft bend of her neck. It doesn’t make him feel any less guilty or ashamed, but he deeply inhales the smell of her nonetheless. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you… and Kamaria.” His mind reels at the thought of actually having a daughter, a girl somewhere in Loess that reminds Islas of him. “I should have been here for both of you.”
“I missed you,” she says, and his eyelids flutter open. Her confession is as much a strange thing to him as it is to her. Their relationship had begun with her emptiness, her ability to turn a cold shoulder to the world. He had been (still is, as exhausted as he feels now) full to the brim with emotions, a whole rolling sea of them that crashed against his insides. They had chanted to be set loose, and Islas’s star-gifted black hole had been a place he could release them. Yet he’s assumed her emotions are fabricated from his, that her love and empathy for him had been echoes of how he’s felt for her.
But she tells him she’s missed him, that she’s been afraid, and Tiercel can’t imagine his emotions have enough power to reach across worlds. He wants to tell her that he’s missed her every day, but the reality is that he has no idea how many days have passed or what day even looks like anymore. The Underworld had its own concepts of time, and it did not include the sun rising and falling. There was only the stark white light burning his eyes, and his deaths to keep track of time. And even this number he lost track of, like the times he has prayed for Islas.
Instead, he says, “I missed you beyond words,” and he doesn’t have to place the loss he had felt into her darkness, because he knows she feels at least a fraction of it on her own.
Tiercel falls quiet as she begins to speak of their child (“She,” Islas says, and his chest tightens at the thought of a daughter). Marni had been older by the time he was born, and so he really only has Eyas to base his knowledge of daughters or sisters. His winged triplet had been quite the experience… and one reason why he had fled his family at his young age. The dun quickly hopes Kamaria will love him more than Eyas had, though sometimes he wonders if his sister ever loved him at all.
They’re foolish thoughts, especially with such a happy day as his reunion with Islas, but he can’t help the way his firstborn dredges up his memories of the past. Tiercel’s ragged throat chuckles alongside her softer laugh, but he can’t stop the regret that soaks into his pale eyes and the air around them. He’d abandoned her right when she needed him the most — through childbirth, through the worst of the eclipse, through the newborn days — and now he’s somehow back when things have gotten easier.
A heavy sigh leaves his chest, and he turns to push his face into the soft bend of her neck. It doesn’t make him feel any less guilty or ashamed, but he deeply inhales the smell of her nonetheless. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you… and Kamaria.” His mind reels at the thought of actually having a daughter, a girl somewhere in Loess that reminds Islas of him. “I should have been here for both of you.”
tiercel.
@[Islas]