06-22-2017, 02:05 AM
Ellyse
I'm the only one who will walk across a fire for you.
it's only fear that makes you run, the demons that you're hiding from.
”Maybe,” she murmurs softly, thoughtfully. Maybe.And she had. She had longed for him to open up to her, to tell her of all the ways his heart ached, of all the awful devastation that had ravaged his heart so – and he did, for a moment. One fleeting moment beneath a starlit sky, where the heaviness of his confession very nearly drew them further out to sea before pulling them down into its murky depths, drowning them both in his despair.
It had been a painful moment – her, longing to be his strength, yearning to be anything more to him, and him, a wavering pillar, crumbling beneath a history too heavy to carry with a heart buried too deeply to be found. Yet, he had pushed her away, before pulling her back in again. Back, and forth. A never-ending, heart-wrenching exchange that left her weary, lonely, and bitter.
Though her heart had been left in mere pieces when he left, she had found some deeper meaning to her life. Her children were her heartbeat, and in time, she had learned to let down her own barrier – if she had learned nothing else from him, it was that one cannot spend an eternity living with regret. She still faltered – a sharp tongue, and a sharper wit – she often did not have a filter, and it occasionally had repercussions, but her heart was more open and softened with each day.
And though his words hurt (and oh, how the knife twists and turns gently inside of her chest – never before has a stranger stirred such misery), they are his own truth – and not her own.
He mutters about his capability, and she does not argue. She, too, wondered about how one could love anyone else without loving themselves, and loving himself was most certainly not one of Magnus’ strong points. Even so, he had kept her warm beneath a quiet, frigid dawn, and he had coaxed her out of her own bone-carved armor, vulnerable beneath her covering. He had defended her when no one else would, and he had followed her where no one else would go. He had given her the gift of motherhood, not once, but four times – and he had wept beside her as their first, a slick and too-still daughter, fell stillborn beneath the pale moonlight.
He was imperfect, but he had been enough, and even if he had never loved her at all, it had been enough for her.
His apology is quiet, and more selfish than sincere – he is not apologetic for what he has said; only for the truth behind his bitter words. ”I’m not going to accept your apology. You haven't told me anything I don't already know." She mumbles quietly, the ridge of her brow line furrowed as her gaze holds steady to the deep, almost grotesque scarring of his eye.
Gently, and perhaps foolishly (he may have a beast within, but she is none the wiser, and he is frail – she could take him, should she need to), she touches the plush velvet of her nose to his cheek where thick scarring lay. It is a momentary touch, a brief and fleeting one, but the only semblance of comfort she can give. ”You’re hurting, maybe for reasons that I can never – and will never understand,” (how familiar a thought; he was more like his father than he realized) ”but if yelling in a wide and empty field at someone you think you know is any respite, at least I have done that much.”
There is a lacing of humor in her final words, but it is fleeting, as her deep, golden eyes watch the warm summer sun fade behind him.
when all your promises are gone, I'm the only one.