Out with the golden we sew // Rapt

[rapt]

there is a dream in the space between the hammer and the nail ------ the dream of about-to-be-hit, which is a bad dream ------------ but the nail will take the hit if it gets to sleep inside the wood forever He follows her to a kingdom he doesn’t belong in. It’s familiar, to follow her. He’s done it so many times before. Followed her into realms and dreams and nightmares, always so damn eager. That eagerness is still there – still a part of him – but it’s no longer aimed towards her. He doesn’t respond to her joke, lets it die, lets the silence wrap around them, huge and awkward, but he prefers it. He knows his own weakness, feels it, and while he can’t change it – his weakness is something fundamental – he can ignore it. Hide it. The kingdom is lovely enough – almost like one of the places you dreamed, he thinks – but to him it looks ugly, because he is uncomfortable here, where there is a family and a world that he has no knowledge of, no place within except through a tenuous connection. But that all changes and falls away when his son appears, charging toward him, nose against shoulder. He forgets the ugliness of his emotions in this moment, touching Abysm’s withers, inhaling the boy’s scent. “Your mother asked that I meet her family,” he says, then, “I’m glad you’re here.” rapt caius x else