[private] lonely in the cold nights, maze

[Selaphiel]

selaphiel

these days i don’t pray when i close my eyes

He is a thing built to bend, Selaphiel.

He is not a thing made of marble or granite.

He wilts. He flinches. He recoils.

She lands her blows and he does not bother trying to hide the way he reacts to them. They sink deep, carve the marrow out of his bones, pollute the bloodstream. And he tries and fails to drag in a steadying breath.

She has smelled of death for as long as he has known her. From the very first moment their paths crossed in the darkness. He had known one of them would die and it had been her and he had continued to smell the truth on her. Still, he can smell it. And he had tried to prevent the death that he can feel pulsing in his chest and in the eyes that still burn.

But the death she speaks of now had not been discernible from the rest. He does not feel it in his belly because he had not gotten the chance to warn her. He had not tried to stop it.

He swallows, searching her face. For what, he’s not sure. Any trace at all of his friend, perhaps. But she is gone and he understands that now. But he’s not ready to let go, not yet. Because even if the mare he’d made the promise to is dead, he wants to be the sort of man who keeps his promises. Even if it doesn’t matter. Because there might come a day when they are reunited again and he will be here waiting for her whether or not she wants him still.

He will not fail her because she has never failed him.

So he wilts and he flinches and he recoils but he does not give her what she must really want from him. He does not leave her.

Instead, he goes on looking at her. And his brow is dark with confusion and hurt and his mouth is twisted into some kind of grimace. And he is a thing built to bend but there is strength in him, too. Because he is the son of an archangel and a dark god. He is built to bend, not break.

The quiet pulses between them for a moment before he asks, “what has he done to you?”

There is a plea in his voice but there is a strength there, too. As if he might drag his friend out of the depths of whoever this is standing in front of him.

“You could die a hundred deaths, Mazikeen, but you are still you,” he tells her, “I don’t know what he’s done to make you doubt that, but… I know who you are at the heart of it. You can’t hide that from me.”

I just bite my tongue a bit harder

@Mazikeen