09-06-2021, 05:18 PM
kensley
i swore the days were over of courting empty dreams
He will not tell her how painful it is because she is still young, young enough to believe in hope and happiness and all of the beautiful things that youth promises the young. He will not be the one to take these things away from her.
And how could he explain these things anyway? How could he tell her all of the dark things he is responsible for?
He deserves the weight of the bitter guilt that sits like a stone in the pit of his gut, he knows that, but there is something like relief to be found in the idea that she does not see him in the only way he should be seen. (Which is: as a failure, a fraud, a coward.)
The act of living should be torture for him, but for the moment he allows himself to believe that he deserves to set it all down for just long enough to catch his breath, to rest his aching muscles, and soothe his weary heart.
“Nothing I can’t manage,” he assures her and smiles still. Has pain not been his only constant companion? Even more than Kennice, his beloved twin. When did he see her last? The pain of missing her has been with him longer than she has, he thinks.
He remembers the way Aela had looked at him some years ago. Plain-eyed, her expression unstirring. She had seemed such a serious child then and he had remembered his own children but had not had the emotional capacity to ache for them. Not until she’d touched him a moment too long and melted the ice that had protected him from all that pain.
She looks at him that way now, appraising, so much gravity for someone so young.
“Yes, I woke one morning to find that my outsides matched my insides,” he jokes, though it comes out flat. It is too close to the truth to be funny. “I still don’t know how it happened.”
And how could he explain these things anyway? How could he tell her all of the dark things he is responsible for?
He deserves the weight of the bitter guilt that sits like a stone in the pit of his gut, he knows that, but there is something like relief to be found in the idea that she does not see him in the only way he should be seen. (Which is: as a failure, a fraud, a coward.)
The act of living should be torture for him, but for the moment he allows himself to believe that he deserves to set it all down for just long enough to catch his breath, to rest his aching muscles, and soothe his weary heart.
“Nothing I can’t manage,” he assures her and smiles still. Has pain not been his only constant companion? Even more than Kennice, his beloved twin. When did he see her last? The pain of missing her has been with him longer than she has, he thinks.
He remembers the way Aela had looked at him some years ago. Plain-eyed, her expression unstirring. She had seemed such a serious child then and he had remembered his own children but had not had the emotional capacity to ache for them. Not until she’d touched him a moment too long and melted the ice that had protected him from all that pain.
She looks at him that way now, appraising, so much gravity for someone so young.
“Yes, I woke one morning to find that my outsides matched my insides,” he jokes, though it comes out flat. It is too close to the truth to be funny. “I still don’t know how it happened.”
i worshipped at the altar of losing everything
@Aela