11-13-2021, 09:51 PM
Savior
Together, he thinks, they can overcome anything.
Together, he thinks, there is nothing they cannot accomplish.
So he does not doubt for a moment that they will return Tephra to what it was, what it should have been all along. He does not doubt that order will be restored.
He does not doubt that they will be happy.
(How could he, when every moment he has ever spent with her has been so impossibly blissful? He has even clung to the memories of the bittersweet moments each time she had to return to Hyaline and he could not go with her. Perhaps this was the only time he ever resented Tephra for all that it meant to him.)
And he smiles something placid when she teases him in turn. Effortless.
But then she eases herself away from him and his heart lurches with the sound of her apology. His brow darkens in confusion because he cannot see anything that she should be apologizing for. Because she has never done anything but love him, even when he has not deserved it, even when he has pledged his allegiance to Tephra and has not been able to turn his back on it. (And he should have. She should have been the most important thing always. He should have been able to set the dragon in him on fire, torched it without remorse, in order to be with her.)
He wants to assure her that he’d have waited a thousand lifetimes for her, if that’s what it took. But he says nothing, if only to avoid interrupting her.
He knows precious little of the things she had endured in all the life she had lived before their paths had crossed in the cold. He does not know the way love has wounded her. But the strain in her voice sinks blades between his ribs and he shakes his head, embracing her when she returns to him again, holding her hard and fast against him.
“Don’t ever apologize to me, Casimira,” he murmurs, pressing his mouth into the tangles of her mane. “You are here now,” he continues, “what’s in the past is done, please don’t dwell on it.” Not the time they spent apart or those who’d mishandled her heart before him.
“It’s the future that’s important now.”
Together, he thinks, there is nothing they cannot accomplish.
So he does not doubt for a moment that they will return Tephra to what it was, what it should have been all along. He does not doubt that order will be restored.
He does not doubt that they will be happy.
(How could he, when every moment he has ever spent with her has been so impossibly blissful? He has even clung to the memories of the bittersweet moments each time she had to return to Hyaline and he could not go with her. Perhaps this was the only time he ever resented Tephra for all that it meant to him.)
And he smiles something placid when she teases him in turn. Effortless.
But then she eases herself away from him and his heart lurches with the sound of her apology. His brow darkens in confusion because he cannot see anything that she should be apologizing for. Because she has never done anything but love him, even when he has not deserved it, even when he has pledged his allegiance to Tephra and has not been able to turn his back on it. (And he should have. She should have been the most important thing always. He should have been able to set the dragon in him on fire, torched it without remorse, in order to be with her.)
He wants to assure her that he’d have waited a thousand lifetimes for her, if that’s what it took. But he says nothing, if only to avoid interrupting her.
He knows precious little of the things she had endured in all the life she had lived before their paths had crossed in the cold. He does not know the way love has wounded her. But the strain in her voice sinks blades between his ribs and he shakes his head, embracing her when she returns to him again, holding her hard and fast against him.
“Don’t ever apologize to me, Casimira,” he murmurs, pressing his mouth into the tangles of her mane. “You are here now,” he continues, “what’s in the past is done, please don’t dwell on it.” Not the time they spent apart or those who’d mishandled her heart before him.
“It’s the future that’s important now.”
YOU REMIND ME WHO I WAS AND WHO I WANT TO BE
YOU REMIND ME THOUGH NOT WHOLE, I’M NOT EMPTY
YOU REMIND ME THOUGH NOT WHOLE, I’M NOT EMPTY
@Casimira