09-09-2021, 08:39 PM
She is not expecting his words to carry such weight when they land against her chest like thrown stones, leaving invisible bruises behind as she carefully schools her face blank again. It is not the reminder that he has a son, a family while she is so promised to her solitude, it is the way he burns with his truth, the way he transforms into someone that feels subtly new to her. There is a reflex to reach for him, to touch his skin and draw him back to her and away from this anger, but it feels wrong to take him from something so well deserved. To have his son taken from him, to have his family wronged like that, she can’t even imagine it. Would her own dad have noticed if she went missing?
“How can I help?” She asks, and those mismatched eyes never wander from his face for an instant, not even when his own gaze leaves her. She traces his profile with eyes that are suddenly soft without an audience to watch her, following the curve of his jaw to his tense, quiet mouth and then back up again to a glint of eye greener than any emerald. It is there that she settles again, watching thoughts swim like fish in those green depths while he works up the will to meet her gaze again.
“Nashua?” His name is like a kiss on her lips, soft and warm and leaving an ache inside her chest that she is so glad he’ll never see. “The only one you’ve failed is yourself, and that’s just because you’re too biased to see things clearly.” She shouldn’t and doesn’t and won’t reach for him, except suddenly her mouth is at the curve of that deep red jaw and she is coaxing him to look at her again with eyes that have stayed gentle and just a shade of vulnerable because this ache she thinks she sees inside him is worth her own heart being hurt a little. “I was here wasn’t I, do you blame me for failing to keep him safe?” Her question is something so gentle, and there is her own shared ache reflected back at him from the furrow of her bicolored brow. “Or is the answer no because I couldn’t have known it was happening.” Just like Nashua hadn’t known, she is sure.
Her lips fall from his skin as she remembers herself suddenly and takes a single step back to allow him the space she should have given him in the first place. It isn’t a sudden change that takes her face, it is a slow realization of her gentleness laid bare to him, of the vulnerability she knows she needs to be more careful of lest he notice what else sparks for him inside the black and gold of her quiet gaze. “You let me fend off a literal demon inside you,” she reminds him, inclining her head to search a face so ancient with its burdens, “I’ll fight figurative ones for you too. I am always willing to share this weight with you.” Her words lack the fire of passion, but there is an edge of steel inside the promise that glints in the stubborn shine of her mismatched gaze.
She watches the red bleed out of the chestnut, draining to the shade she remembers from that first time in the forest. For a moment she is lost, dragged away to the memory that brings a gentle smile to the corners of her quiet mouth. Of him and her in the bleeding dark, of death following at their heels while they ignored it in favor of better company. There is a pang in her chest when he tells her he is glad to have seen her again, and she feels the tug of me too where it sits on her lips too heavy to speak. “It would be more worrisome if you felt nothing, I think.”
Her eyes trace his face again, furrowed gently and searching, almost unsure behind the black curtain of her forelock. “Do you know where he is? Your son.” Her wings shift at her shoulders, the rustle of movement and feather the only giveaway that she is restless to help find him, help ease this fire inside him back down to a bearable smolder.
“How can I help?” She asks, and those mismatched eyes never wander from his face for an instant, not even when his own gaze leaves her. She traces his profile with eyes that are suddenly soft without an audience to watch her, following the curve of his jaw to his tense, quiet mouth and then back up again to a glint of eye greener than any emerald. It is there that she settles again, watching thoughts swim like fish in those green depths while he works up the will to meet her gaze again.
“Nashua?” His name is like a kiss on her lips, soft and warm and leaving an ache inside her chest that she is so glad he’ll never see. “The only one you’ve failed is yourself, and that’s just because you’re too biased to see things clearly.” She shouldn’t and doesn’t and won’t reach for him, except suddenly her mouth is at the curve of that deep red jaw and she is coaxing him to look at her again with eyes that have stayed gentle and just a shade of vulnerable because this ache she thinks she sees inside him is worth her own heart being hurt a little. “I was here wasn’t I, do you blame me for failing to keep him safe?” Her question is something so gentle, and there is her own shared ache reflected back at him from the furrow of her bicolored brow. “Or is the answer no because I couldn’t have known it was happening.” Just like Nashua hadn’t known, she is sure.
Her lips fall from his skin as she remembers herself suddenly and takes a single step back to allow him the space she should have given him in the first place. It isn’t a sudden change that takes her face, it is a slow realization of her gentleness laid bare to him, of the vulnerability she knows she needs to be more careful of lest he notice what else sparks for him inside the black and gold of her quiet gaze. “You let me fend off a literal demon inside you,” she reminds him, inclining her head to search a face so ancient with its burdens, “I’ll fight figurative ones for you too. I am always willing to share this weight with you.” Her words lack the fire of passion, but there is an edge of steel inside the promise that glints in the stubborn shine of her mismatched gaze.
She watches the red bleed out of the chestnut, draining to the shade she remembers from that first time in the forest. For a moment she is lost, dragged away to the memory that brings a gentle smile to the corners of her quiet mouth. Of him and her in the bleeding dark, of death following at their heels while they ignored it in favor of better company. There is a pang in her chest when he tells her he is glad to have seen her again, and she feels the tug of me too where it sits on her lips too heavy to speak. “It would be more worrisome if you felt nothing, I think.”
Her eyes trace his face again, furrowed gently and searching, almost unsure behind the black curtain of her forelock. “Do you know where he is? Your son.” Her wings shift at her shoulders, the rustle of movement and feather the only giveaway that she is restless to help find him, help ease this fire inside him back down to a bearable smolder.
ILLUMINAE
we can't dream when we're awake,
or fall in love with a heart too strong to break