[open] swallowed the sickness, a fever, a flame; any

[brunhilde]

i'm a geyser, feel it bubbling from below
hear it call, hear it call, hear it call to me, constantly

Brunhilde has always loved to play with fire—

She especially loves it for burning away the months she carried her firstborn. She knows he exists, that little Abyss in her heart, but her clever trauma brain has taken every precaution to keep her safe. Without him, without that heavy weight burdening her torrid relationship with Beelzebub, the little flame thrived.

(Or, so she has convinced herself with false memories of a man that does not exist.)

Her little Abyss, so dark and black in her chest—nothing more than a little brother conceived between her roguish mother and missing father.

The thought of her darling sibling curls her usually flattened lips. Brun thinks she will need to pay him a visit soon, when she is not so busy with Bub, but . . . A little shake of her head rids her of her worry. Her focus returns to the flicker and glow she casts on the surrounding trees, gemstone eyes quiet and misleading.

Timid, she thinks, that is what I need to look like.

Timid, until she hears the groan of the dead just returning to life. Gooseflesh rises in waves along her neck when she comes to a stop, head turning so, so slowly in the direction of the noise. It is not fear that locks her legs—no, she lost fear a long time ago—but a curiosity she tries desperately to swallow. The need is fantastic and cold as it washes down her throat (a gulp of air and she sees him, sees him for the dead man he always has been).

“You,” Brunhilde murmurs, voice as soft as an echo. “You!” This time she is louder, amused.

“Brigade,” she drags the name from a foggy memory that grows clearer with each passing second. “You look like shit.”

A smirk, a shrug of her shoulders, a flip of her hair accentuated by the glow in her mane.

and hear the harmony only when it's harming me
it's not real, it's not real, it's not real enough

Brunhilde