etro --
in the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon,
I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom
She may not be the same child he left behind, but there are still constellations trapped within her breast. There are still impossibilities ground from the dust of her bones and fates not yet writ. And yet. Oh, and yet, there are differences between this encounter and the ones before. Differences that at once seem so small, so trivial, and yet are a yawning chasm between them. A chasm she is not sure that she can cross. Not even for him. Her mouth tastes of metal; it is bitter and cold. She is cold. She is shivering with the disappearance of his heat, and she does not know if she will ever feel warm again—ever feel whole.
With a breath that sounds like a sigh, she parts from him, stops leaning against the knife that is his body. Her eyes shine with tears that do not fall, and she swallows hard, blinking softly, not bothering to hide the emotions that strangle her throat. “Oh.” Her voice is soft, has always been soft, and despite the years that have passed since the last time they had collided, it is the same voice, silver bells not deepened by age. For the first time with him, she is acutely aware of the plainness of her face, the heavy lines of her body.
For the first time with him, she feels shame. She feels doubt.
“Oh.”
The chasm between them widens, deepens, darkens, and she is suspended over it; there is nothing to catch her now. He has been one of the only truths that she has ever held close, and it is crumbling. He is looking at her but it is not the same; he is not the same. In truth, she is not the same. She does not fear him, but she fears something—fears herself, her doubt, her life now that she has managed to negate even the magic that had once existed between them. She was wrong—always. She destroyed—always.
Now she has destroyed them.
“I understand,” she says softly, although she is not sure that she does. Not sure that she ever will. “I do.” Etro does her best to look strong, but her version of strength has never been the same as the world’s. She wears emotions like armor, and her armor now is vulnerable—it is shadowed by her insecurities, the visible breaking of her heart. “I should stop bothering you,” because that is all she wants to do. She wants to lean against him until his fangs are at his neck. She wants to break him open that she can understand what she did wrong. (What did I do?) She wants to know; needs to know. “I’m sorry.”
-- vanquish and yael's forgotten trait-negating princess --
