10-05-2015, 09:54 PM
some are lost in the fire
some are built from it
Ugly.
The word hits him like a splash of water, like a thousand rude awakenings all at once. He has never been ugly – that is, except for when he was there, that place where he was melted and ruined and mutilated and made beautiful only for it all to turn terrible. Ugly, ugly, ugly – ugly are his scars, no less real than hers for being a bit less physical. She may be forever blue whereas he will fade, but both of them have the reality of what they endured etched into their skin.
And then, equally impossibly, he feels her against him.
He's never been touched this way before. Not for lack of opportunity, so to speak; he's never wanted for female attention, being the handsome little devil that Straia and Warship were simply bound to create. But at no point have any of them actually gotten to the step of touching him. Not like this, not tenderly, tentatively, as though it matters.
And he welcomes it. In fact, he finds that somewhere deep inside him, something about the strange fire is soothed by her presence.
The mud from her coat tracks onto his, and the coolness is welcome. He closes his eyes too as they come together, embracing, finding solace and comfort in each other. They are two impossibilities, it's true, he knows the depths of the truth of it as she speaks the words. But with her here, somehow the very impossibility of it seems…all right. The strangeness he's felt since his return feels a little less…strange.
He lets the silence hang between them for a moment. He presses himself into her, lets his mouth drift up against her spine. He is warm, a gentle heat that tries to beat out the chill in both of their bones.
He wants to tell her that the blue may be ugly, but that she is not. He wants to tell her that she speaks to him like poetry, that her touch is like warmth and ice all at once, and that this surprising contact is more beneficial to him than breathing. He wants to tell her that they should never move apart, that they should stay like this forever, pressed close, riding out the waves of a terror that few others could experience.
He wants to be ashamed of himself for feeling this way. He wants to burn with the shame of it, to wither in the knowledge that he, the good, stoic boy loyal only to the Chamber, has found something (someone) that does what even his home could not. He does not want to admit that there could ever be anything more than home in his life. But there is, there is, and he knows it in his bones.
"It is easier, together." his voice is both a question and a statement when he speaks to her, murmuring the words. He almost thinks he can smell the indigo. But perhaps it's just the mud.
And suddenly he's seized with an idea so impossible that it sears through his mind like a brand of hot iron. If he were to be careful – so careful, so impossibly careful – perhaps he could sear the offending indigo from her body, burning hair by hair and leaving the skin underneath untouched. It would never be that way for him – he could never sear anything off himself, and even if he did, what's inside his head could never be seared out – but perhaps he could do something for her.
"I…" he starts, unsure how to even begin. "If you wish…." he watches her, uncharacteristically unsure of himself. "I have an ability with heat. I could try to...sear it away." he pauses again, and then realizes he must need to clarify. "The indigo. I could…I could at least try."
He watches her carefully, tense, thinking that perhaps she'll find him a lunatic, that perhaps she'll hate him, that perhaps she'll run from him and he'll lose her. And it's that thought which terrifies him the most, because now that he's found a kindred spirit he wants nothing more than to keep her close.
And that fact terrifies him.
The word hits him like a splash of water, like a thousand rude awakenings all at once. He has never been ugly – that is, except for when he was there, that place where he was melted and ruined and mutilated and made beautiful only for it all to turn terrible. Ugly, ugly, ugly – ugly are his scars, no less real than hers for being a bit less physical. She may be forever blue whereas he will fade, but both of them have the reality of what they endured etched into their skin.
And then, equally impossibly, he feels her against him.
He's never been touched this way before. Not for lack of opportunity, so to speak; he's never wanted for female attention, being the handsome little devil that Straia and Warship were simply bound to create. But at no point have any of them actually gotten to the step of touching him. Not like this, not tenderly, tentatively, as though it matters.
And he welcomes it. In fact, he finds that somewhere deep inside him, something about the strange fire is soothed by her presence.
The mud from her coat tracks onto his, and the coolness is welcome. He closes his eyes too as they come together, embracing, finding solace and comfort in each other. They are two impossibilities, it's true, he knows the depths of the truth of it as she speaks the words. But with her here, somehow the very impossibility of it seems…all right. The strangeness he's felt since his return feels a little less…strange.
He lets the silence hang between them for a moment. He presses himself into her, lets his mouth drift up against her spine. He is warm, a gentle heat that tries to beat out the chill in both of their bones.
He wants to tell her that the blue may be ugly, but that she is not. He wants to tell her that she speaks to him like poetry, that her touch is like warmth and ice all at once, and that this surprising contact is more beneficial to him than breathing. He wants to tell her that they should never move apart, that they should stay like this forever, pressed close, riding out the waves of a terror that few others could experience.
He wants to be ashamed of himself for feeling this way. He wants to burn with the shame of it, to wither in the knowledge that he, the good, stoic boy loyal only to the Chamber, has found something (someone) that does what even his home could not. He does not want to admit that there could ever be anything more than home in his life. But there is, there is, and he knows it in his bones.
"It is easier, together." his voice is both a question and a statement when he speaks to her, murmuring the words. He almost thinks he can smell the indigo. But perhaps it's just the mud.
And suddenly he's seized with an idea so impossible that it sears through his mind like a brand of hot iron. If he were to be careful – so careful, so impossibly careful – perhaps he could sear the offending indigo from her body, burning hair by hair and leaving the skin underneath untouched. It would never be that way for him – he could never sear anything off himself, and even if he did, what's inside his head could never be seared out – but perhaps he could do something for her.
"I…" he starts, unsure how to even begin. "If you wish…." he watches her, uncharacteristically unsure of himself. "I have an ability with heat. I could try to...sear it away." he pauses again, and then realizes he must need to clarify. "The indigo. I could…I could at least try."
He watches her carefully, tense, thinking that perhaps she'll find him a lunatic, that perhaps she'll hate him, that perhaps she'll run from him and he'll lose her. And it's that thought which terrifies him the most, because now that he's found a kindred spirit he wants nothing more than to keep her close.
And that fact terrifies him.
erebor
heat manipulating lord of the chamber
warship x straia
