Tiberios
There’s so much left to explain to her. So much left to contemplate and work out. It seems like every time they take a step forward together, a chasm of impossibility opens up beneath them and swallows them whole. They’ll never escape it - not in this life. Star-crossed lovers. Tiberios wants to laugh at the thought but he can’t, because it rips through his heart like a serrated blade and leaves him empty. It’s the truth in that phrase that tears him apart. Talulah will never be his, and he will never be hers. But they have right now, and they have the notion that no matter what may transpire between them, they’ll never abandon one another. And that’s something that Tiberios can promise her even on his darkest of days. He doesn’t ask the same promise of her because he knows she already feels the same without having to tell him.
Almost
Her question sends his thoughts racing. There are many forms of happiness, this is true. He likes to think of happiness in different settings. He’s happy with Shatter, when she’s near. That will always hold. He’s happy with Talulah when she presses against him like this. He’s still happy with Tiphon, for being a shadowy guardian to him. Tyrna and Khalis are a level of happiness above all of this. They transcend any anger, pity or loathing he holds inside himself. They’re flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood, and they come before anyone else in his life. But he’s quick to answer her question so that he can stifle any indication of the opposite.
“How could I not be?” He says, thinking on all that he’s been blessed with despite his downfalls. “I’ll tell you what truly makes me happy though.” He starts, amber eyes darting to her own with pointed intention. “Seeing you happy.” She can deny it, or brush it off as childish sentimentality, but Tiberios was earnest. Talulah’s happiness was as important as anything else in his world. If he had any idea on how to fix the trembling pain that cowered in the soft edges of her face, he would wipe it away. But he’s powerless against her secrets. She will keep them, and he will lose sleep over them.
He sighs then, feeling the day beginning to wane. He’d come here with no expectations, and now here he was, tangled up with his past transgressions. But this is not an end. If anything, it’s a beginning - a step forward to amending the wrongs he’d committed against her and solidifying a bond that should have never been broken in the first place. He smiles, nose reaching out to run the length of her neck just once more before he breaks the spell. “I can’t stay. But promise me that I’ll see you again soon.” He asks, feeling the desperation leak out despite his efforts to cover it. “If you don’t, I’ll just hunt you down.” He threatens with a light-hearted chuckle.
No. Not the end. Never the end. Only a beginning.
Tiberios
King of the Falls