i took the poison praying you'd feel it, too
i wrapped my neck and prayed that you'd feel the noose
There is nothing silly about her answer.
He rolls his own shoulders in a kind of shrug, shakes his head.
“It’s not silly,” he says, even. She laughs but he does not. The most he can offer is a faint stirring in the furthest corners of his mouth. “There is nothing silly about being honest.”
He shouldn’t have mentioned it, he realizes. He shackles himself with the blame when she circles back to an off-handed remark that had turned his stomach but he had thought little of. It had been a brief lapse in judgment, his attempt at explaining how he could look young even at his age. His considerable age.
She calls them back to her and he cannot fault her for it, but his nostrils flare and his heart lurches and he swallows thickly. Because the gift is not his to hold, because it had belonged to his sister and he does not understand the magic that took it from her veins and put it in his. She should be here still, he thinks, and he’d gladly forfeit the promise of forever to have her back.
“Yes,” he murmurs and a faint nod follows as he turns away his gaze. As if he might hide the storm clouds that pass across his face. As if he can hide the colossal hurt that rises up to swallow him whole. And she had vanquished the exhaustion and the aching in his muscles with her own magic, but he can feel them creeping in again. Because they have less to do with exertion and more to do with grief.
He considers her question a long time, staring blankly toward the horizon. At long last, he clears his throat and rolls his shoulders again. He knows perhaps too well that, despite the gift (or curse, maybe, in this instance), you can still die.
“It’s a fairly recent development,” he admits, “I haven’t had a lot of time to dwell on it.”
shattered son of jarris and plumeria |
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