04-23-2023, 01:51 PM
KENSLEY
He smiles something distant.
‘Yes, I’m alive, and so are you.’
Because he hadn’t been the last time he’d seen her. Because he had ached for breath in a way that was purely psychological. He had not needed to draw breath when he’d emerged from the Mountain a dead thing. A dead thing that went on existing. (And for what?) But it had been his punishment and he’d understood that. His punishment for taking a life he had not deserved.
The smile is warped at its edges, uncertain, but he means it all the same. Because it is such a relief to be standing here with her, his other half, armed with the knowledge that they have both weathered the storms.
(He has failed in so many ways, Kensley, but he is still here and he is still her brother and this must count for something. This must mean something. He cannot let it mean nothing.)
He is not the same brother he’d been all those years ago. He is not the same sharp-eyed boy who’d loved her first of all, his sister, his twin. And she is not the same either, is she? None of them are, not really. But this has not changed: their hearts burn the same, magnetic. This, the love of twin siblings, is perhaps the purest of all and he thinks that maybe it is this force that has brought them back together after all of these years.)
“I’m tired, Kennice,” he tells her and exhales a breath that takes on a life of its own after it has left his mouth. A strong gust of wind that bends the grass around them. He is not the same boy, no, not at all. Now he is the storm. “But I’m all right,” he assures her, nodding. “I’m all right,” he says again, as if trying to convince himself.
“Where have you been?” he asks, afraid to outright ask her what she has endured in all of the time that has passed between them.
‘Yes, I’m alive, and so are you.’
Because he hadn’t been the last time he’d seen her. Because he had ached for breath in a way that was purely psychological. He had not needed to draw breath when he’d emerged from the Mountain a dead thing. A dead thing that went on existing. (And for what?) But it had been his punishment and he’d understood that. His punishment for taking a life he had not deserved.
The smile is warped at its edges, uncertain, but he means it all the same. Because it is such a relief to be standing here with her, his other half, armed with the knowledge that they have both weathered the storms.
(He has failed in so many ways, Kensley, but he is still here and he is still her brother and this must count for something. This must mean something. He cannot let it mean nothing.)
He is not the same brother he’d been all those years ago. He is not the same sharp-eyed boy who’d loved her first of all, his sister, his twin. And she is not the same either, is she? None of them are, not really. But this has not changed: their hearts burn the same, magnetic. This, the love of twin siblings, is perhaps the purest of all and he thinks that maybe it is this force that has brought them back together after all of these years.)
“I’m tired, Kennice,” he tells her and exhales a breath that takes on a life of its own after it has left his mouth. A strong gust of wind that bends the grass around them. He is not the same boy, no, not at all. Now he is the storm. “But I’m all right,” he assures her, nodding. “I’m all right,” he says again, as if trying to convince himself.
“Where have you been?” he asks, afraid to outright ask her what she has endured in all of the time that has passed between them.
I WORSHIPPED AT THE ALTAR OF LOSING EVERYTHING )
@Kennice