i worshipped at the altar of losing everything )
He had been bold once. Unfettered.
He had been warm and kind and honest.
He had not been particularly brave.
But, then, he’d never had reason to be.
And now?
Kensley had been drained of all of his warmth even before he’d flung himself into the jaws of death and came back something that was neither alive nor dead. He had smiled still, because the kindness had been bred into the very marrow of his bones and had not been so easy to lose, but no smile he offered ever reached his eyes. Because he had come home to Beqanna a crippled thing. Crippled by grief and a despair so potent that sometimes he could not breathe around it.
But he does not need to now.
Because he does not breathe at all.
Not even out of habit. Not even when he had found such comfort in dragging in breaths that shuddered and spasmed as they moved swiftly across his tongue. He does not bother with them now. The ribcage does not stir, neither with a pulse nor with a breath.
He smiles now, when she shares her name. Moselle. She is small and young but he can see the history in her eyes. He wonders if he’d recognize it if he were not also a dead thing. He wonders if all of the other dead came back as younger versions of themselves, as if born again. Or if they came back just as they had gone. He could ask, he supposes, but maybe she does not know she is a dead thing.
“Moselle,” he echoes and then nods, commits it to memory. The name is not familiar and he makes no effort to remember if they’d known each other, before.
He has opened his mouth to say something – it’s good to meet you, perhaps, or something similar – but the words catch in the column of his throat when she reaches out to touch him. It is not difficult for him to go absolutely still, his gaze now fastened securely to her face. If he had breath, he might have held it.
Somehow, he knows why she’s done it. Because she can tell that he is a dead thing, too.
“How does it feel?” he asks. There is no teasing in his tone, only a certain despair. Because he does not know. And he’s not absolutely convinced he wants to.
