"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
Even in the dark she knows his shape, knows the silvery sheen of the moon where it sits in those hollowed out places by his shoulder and flank. She inhales sharply, and those dark eyes flash as she turns to disappear further down the mountain, trailing his pace at a much slower, much less graceful amble. Her belly is full, though not for much longer, and it sways beneath her with the weight of their newest child. She smiles again, and it is a strange thing, full of quiet and longing and perhaps knowing, too. She had been uneasy all day, restless, as the child within shifted and prepared for the next part of her journey into existence. It was a feeling Isle knew well enough to suspect that at some point, beneath the stars or in the watery light of morning, their family would expand again by one.
He disappears into the dim, yawning mouth of a cave, and she can feel her pace quicken reflexively. They had argued the last time they spoke, and it wasn’t world-ending, but that tension between them had sat like a knot in her chest in the many weeks they had been apart. Tonight was the first night she had seen him in what felt like forever, though it really wasn’t at all, and she was eager to fold herself into the curve of his large, dark body so that they might wait for this birth together. For all her faults, all her flaws, all her tendencies to drift as the clouds do, she loved her tundra king.
But when she reaches the mouth of the cave, she forgets all about tucking in close to his side. The first thing she notices is Nevi and Lee, the way they are scrambling apart in the wake of their sudden audience. She might’ve been surprised, or at least more surprised, if it weren’t for the stink of stale, coppery blood that ambushed her the moment she stepped inside. It was at that same moment that her furrowed eyes fell on Offspring, on the fur matted with blood and the wounds that had flayed parts of his dark, scarred body. Her stomach clenches and she thinks her heart might burst for the way it stutters so wildly in her chest, but she goes to him immediately, trembling. Her lips are tentative when they whisper across his shoulder, bolder when they travel along the curve of his neck, urgent when they touch his.
She shifts beside him and her face lifts to catch the red of that searing gaze. But it isn’t pity that sits in her eyes for him to see, it is fear- and she thinks she must finally understand how he felt when his family returned to him broken by wolves. I can’t lose you. She thinks, she dreads, but the words don’t have a chance to leave her selfish mouth because Lee beats her to it. It is only then that she notices the tension that stretches between them. With all the intensity of things left unsaid too long, Lee shatters, and the storm she unleashes is nearly enough to knock Isle off her feet.
Even after the girl has finished, even after there is only a heavy silence, Isle says nothing.
“I let you down.” She says finally, and her voice is a quiet thing, a heavy thing. Her family was her only responsibility, and she had let them down time and time again. She should have been there for the bumps and bruises, reminded them more often than she had that she loved them, that they belonged. But being a mother was not something that came easily to her, it was not some innate instinct buried in the strands of her DNA as it had been for her own mother. She would be there to protect, to defend, but the little things came less easily for someone who hid her heart as readily as Isle did. Her dark eyes slip from Lee to Nevi, where they settle for a moment, and then back again. “Just me.”
She shifts and the movement pulls her away from Offspring, inviting cold tundra air to wedge between them. For another moment she is silent, struggling to find a way to put to words what she is certain each of them already knew and had forgotten in their hurt. It was something Isle knew, something he had warned her of before and she promised him it wouldn’t matter.
He wouldn’t always be able to be there, tucked away with this family. But it wasn’t because he didn’t love them, it wasn’t because he was an absent father. Unlike Isle, his responsibility was to his kingdom, to his people of whom there were many. It was his job to see it grow, his to protect. He made allies and he fought for them. He defended the walls so that many could call it home, so that many could remain safe.
Isle’s eyes are like dark bruises when they lift to Offspring for a second to leech comfort from the familiarity of contrasting red and black. “He isn’t just ours.” Her eyes close, disappearing beneath dark eyelashes as she turns her face from him to look back to Nevi and Lee. “But I should have been more for you.” If only she knew how.
But what Lee says next feels like a slap to the face and it is nearly impossible to keep the hurt from showing, to keep it from simmering into a quiet resentment. “Love isn’t perfect, Lee, nothing in this world is. There is no good without bad. We’re all a little broken, but that doesn’t make us a broken family.” She pauses and the silence feels almost unbearably heavy- and it hurts, it hurts that Lieschel could ever think that Argo and Australis are somehow less because their parents love is imperfect. But she won’t say this, won’t put in stone the things that were said in the moment of a heart breaking. So she slips back to Offspring’s side, leaning as close as she can without bringing more pain to the wounds and bruises dappled across his skin. With her face upturned to his and lips trailing quiet kisses along the curve of his jaw, she whispers, “Even imperfect love is worth fighting for.”
I know you're trying to fight when you feel like flying.
I thought the world would shatter around me if I told her the truth. If I let her see that I can’t give her all of me, because part of my heart has always belonged to Argo, from the moment he blinked baby brown eyes up at me. Instead, she smiles like it’s nothing, like it isn’t some big secret that could tear us apart and break everything forever. She smiles, and my eyes drift closed as she kisses my forehead, my cheek. “I’m okay with that.” Four little words that chase away the fear--until she jolts to her feet.
I didn’t even hear him come in, so wrapped up in Lee, in her touch, in her acceptance, that nothing else existed. The fear she just chased away is back, an instant of panic that cinches around my chest and squeezes, heart racing, breath fast and shallow as the world gets pushed to the verge of shattering all ove--I smell blood. Everything else falls away in that moment, the fear that I’ve broken everything, the stomach-clenching anxiety at the thought of Dad’s face, the sick feeling in my gut as I remember the crushing disappointment in his eyes after the wolf attack, knowing I’m going to see that again or worse and the thought of letting him down kills me. All of it, though, all of it vanishes the second I smell his blood on the air.
“Dad?” I echo Lee, but my tone is frantic, concerned. I can barely see him, silhouetted in the cave entrance as he is, but he looks so weary. Exhaustion weighs down his tone, and even if I can’t see the look on his face I can hear that same crushing weight of disappointment in his ragged voice. I want to run over to him, to check his wounds and make sure all that blood I smell is dried and clotted and not free-flowing. But his words stop me before I do anything more than shift the weight of my body forward.
“I have failed you, haven’t I?”
I feel fractures starting to form on the surface of my heart at the sadness in his words. My head starts to shake, because how could he have failed me? The man who took me in, who kept me safe, who watched over me while I slept curled around Argo, his crimson eyes full of love. I was the one who hid, the one who held my pain so close to my chest no one could see it, the one who played quiet storyteller and calm adventurer and watchful brother and kept everyone just a little too far away. I was the one who ducked away and hid in the dark when their love got too heavy, when hugs and cuddles scraped at something still jagged and bleeding inside me.
If either of us failed the other, it was me. If there is distance between us, it is my fault, not his.
“You have no idea what love entails.” My shoulders slump, those fractures in my heart growing deeper, faultlines just waiting to slip and shatter and leave me quaking because I know that. I know I have no idea what I’m doing, and every second I’m scared I’m going to fuck it all up and break something beyond repair. Lee’s heart, my relationship with everyone I love, my whole family, the whole world, the weight of it all so heavy. How long until I ruin it all, how long until I shatter someone because I can’t get it right, can’t even be good enough at loving someone to just love one? How long until it all falls apart because of me, and I’m alone with shards of glass instead of a heart in my chest?
I open my mouth, but I have no words, because he’s right. But it doesn’t change how I feel, not about Lee and not about Argo. I shouldn’t love them, shouldn’t risk the whole world and both of them and all our family when I’m only going to wreck it all. But shouldn’t doesn’t change the way they make my heart feel less broken, make me feel like even just for a moment I might be something good instead of a wraith made of dirt and ash dressed up in shadows and smoke and painted to look like a man, nothing but pretense and plastic smiles covering up the fact that I am nothing.
The love in their eyes, in all of their eyes, is the only thing that makes me feel like more than a worthless little child left to die in the dirt. And I’m too selfish not to hold onto that love with everything I have. Maybe I shouldn’t love Lee and Argo the way I do, maybe it’s selfish to want their hearts racing with mine, their eyes staring deep into mine and straight into my soul, the love I see there lighting up the dark in my heart for just a moment. But I’m not a strong enough man to look away.
I wonder if Lee can hear me breaking, because she lashes out, before I can find words. Before I can tear myself open and spill all my secrets onto the cave floor, she is drawing the fire to herself. Breaking in my place the way she always tries to, but this time out loud. For the first time, out loud. I failed you too. I should have seen how deeply she still hurt, should have pushed her the way she pushed me, gently cajoling until all I could do was pour my heart out at her feet. I should have done more than just holding her in the dark and needing her touch like a drug.
She steps away from me, and I want to follow, want to hold her and chase away every ounce of hurt I didn’t notice, too selfish and wrapped up in how she made me feel to think about how she was feeling. If anyone should have seen, it was me. If anyone should have known how badly she was hurting, it was me. Dad wasn’t the one who spent every spare moment at her side, talking about old hurts and new dreams and touching just a little more, wanting just a little more, needing just a little more every day. He didn’t fail her. I did. I let her down.
“I let you down.”
My head jerks back to Dad and to the voice that is most definitely not his. I didn’t even see Mom come in, so wrapped up in my own breaking. I barely hold back a bitter laugh. So focused on myself I didn’t even see. Isn’t that just the story of my life? Her words echo my thought, and I know that tone so well. It’s the one in my head every moment, quiet and heavy and full of self-blame. Her angel eyes find me, and for a moment I feel like I’m staring into my own. “Just me.” My lower lip trembles and tears fill my eyes, and I shake my head just a tiny bit, knowing she won’t accept my fault--knowing she will accept me for all my faults. She always has.
The first person who ever looked at me with love in her eyes, the first person who ever made me feel like I mattered, like I even deserved to exist. “I came for you, Nevi. Won’t you be my little love?” She is the angel who came to me beneath the shade of the oak tree I picked out to die beneath, and raised me from the jaws of oblivion. She is the center of gravity, the shining star we all revolve around. She is everything, and she is doing what she always does. Drawing the weight of all that guilt, all that blame, and pulling it into herself. “I should have been more for you.” I can feel the shape of the words in my mouth as if she’s taken them and said what I couldn’t. Tears threaten to spill down my cheeks and I take half a step toward her because I know the weight she is taking on with those words.
I know that burden, know how it can slowly crush a soul, and I would die if it made the light in her angel eyes fade. But I know them all. My fault is an echo around the room, and no matter how deeply I feel the truth of those words in my chest, if I speak them too where does it end? “It’s no one’s fault,” I whisper when silence finally falls, and I will myself to believe the words instead of hearing the echo of it’s my fault underneath them.
“It’s no one’s fault,” I say again, looking each of them in the eye in turn. Dad, who has taught me what it means to be a man, even if I’m still trying to learn it. Mom, who has only ever given me all the love in her heart. Lee, who has come to me in the dark over and over and done her level best to make me believe I am something more than the dirt where I was found. Not one of them should bear the blame for this moment, where the whole world is half a breath from shattering.
Mom’s last words slowly sink into my skin, filtering in from every direction and settling in my chest. “Even imperfect love is worth fighting for.” She lives her life by those words. They’re what shone from her eyes the first time she looked at me, She was talking to Dad, reaching out to him to try to mend what’s been broken between them since the wolf attack, but her words are so much bigger than that. Dad isn’t the only one she thinks is worth fighting for. She would fight for each one of us, loves each one of us, no matter how imperfect or flawed or jagged inside.
“Lee.” I murmur her name, closing the distance between us and resting my forehead against hers. I can’t tell if she’s the one shaking or I am, but I just take a deep breath, my eyes closed against the rest of the world so all that exists for just one moment is her and me. “I know you’re scared, honey. And I know it’s so much easier to push people away than to watch them leave you even while you try to hold them close. But please, please be brave with me. Can you do that, love? Can you do that for me?” Can you do that for you? “Mom and Dad love us. Even right now. Exactly as we are. Maybe they won’t approve, maybe they won’t understand, but they will still love us.” I raise my head from hers and look her in the eye. “Even if we’re not perfect. Even if we’re jagged and broken and slowly bleeding out inside and we don’t know how to find the words to say we desperately need to hear it, they will always, always love us.”
I touch my nose to hers, hoping to help anchor her with velvet-soft reassurance, and then I turn to Mom. “You could never have been more for me, because you were already everything. Don’t you know that? Mom and home and family were nothing before you found me. They were meaningless sounds that only got to be words for other people, for better people, for people who weren’t disposable. For people who deserved to matter. Deserved to live. You’re the reason I’m breathing, Mom, don’t you know that?” Twice-over, she saved my life, even if she doesn’t know about the second time. Even if she doesn’t know that her angel eyes were the only thing that kept me from falling off the edge of the world and made me drag myself home instead.
“Dad,” The name of god comes out so soft, quietly pleading, and I take one step toward my father. “It’s not about failing anyone. And you’re right. I don’t know anything about love. I can’t even get it right enough to love just one person.” It’s so hard to meet his eyes, so damn hard to believe what I told Lee and drag my gaze from the floor to seek out crimson eyes that, when last I looked, were full of weariness and disappointment. I don’t know the words to make him see, don’t know how to make him understand--but it’s not about me. How he feels about me, what he thinks of me, that’s not what matters right now. “You didn’t fail me, Dad.” The words come out thick and heavy with emotion, but they finally come out.
“I’m not half the man you are, and maybe I never will be, but I’m learning. Slowly. From you. You didn’t have to love me, didn’t have to hold me close and welcome me into your family. I could have been just some kid Mom dragged home, but you loved me from the start in that quiet, steady way of yours. That first year, you and me and mom and Mari and Argo, you took time away from important kingdom matters just to play pirates with me, or to be the big scary ice dragon from our stories. You watched over me, protected me, loved me like I was your blood. You taught me what a father should be. I’d never have known otherwise. I don’t even know my sire’s name, I mattered that little to him.
“You were there for me when I needed you the most, when I needed a dad to take care of me and help me learn and grow.” Lee didn’t come to us until she was older. Until she was more independent, and her need was quieter, a deeply hidden wound that even I missed, when I was the closest person to her in the world. “You have always been there, watching, letting me take my own risks and make my own mistakes and find my own way, knowing that I can come to you when I need you. And even the thought of disappointing you breaks my heart, because I want so badly to be the man you believe I can be. Even when I don’t believe it myself. Even though deep down I’m still just some throwaway lost boy waiting for everyone to finally see that I’m not worth that kind of faith.”
One of those tears that has been threatening finally rolls down my cheek, and I drag in a shaky breath. “I love them, Dad. Lee and Argo. And I don’t know what to do. I should have come to you. You shouldn’t have found out like this, I’m sorry for that. But I’m not sorry for how I feel. I don’t...I don’t expect you to approve. And I know...I know you’re disappointed in me. But could you help me understand? Could you help me figure it out? Because I’m so scared I’m going to screw everything up, and hurt everyone I love, and I would rather die than break this family. Please, Dad.”
Her words are scathing, lashing out in with a layer of vehemence and loathing that he never would have anticipated. It cloaks him in its heavy confession and leaves him feeling stripped down to the very bone; sinewy muscle and fat deposits cast aside by the seething acid within her tone of voice. His eyes study her, nothing but his ragged breathing filling the air between the gaps of her haywire, yet altogether venomous train of thought. His lungs struggle to intake the thin mountain air, with its icy sting, and his behemoth form shudders with the effort. Her words cut deeply into him, with smooth strokes as if the freshly sharpened blade were cutting into softened butter. No amount of scarring left on the surface of his body could come close to the way she tears him limb from limb, piece to piece, and slowly, with each passing moment, his eyes darken.
Suddenly, his heavy lashes close over his eyes as something warm and familiar settles beside him. He knows her presence before he even has to lay an eye on her - she exudes warmth, comfort and compassion, all of which he has lacked for far too long. Her gentle touch presses against his bruises, broken flesh, which still seeps a trickling of fresh blood with any abrupt motion on his part. Her whiskered lips gently touch his shoulder, and though he flinches away from the pulsating pain that emerges there, he presses the weight of his fatigued body against her. His lashes flutter up and a dark eye eye meets with her soft brown, and though he attempts to stifle it, the pain and vertigo he so desperately attempts to swallow lingers with a flickering light. The brutality of his daughter's words blend in with his lover's gentle, worried touch, and he settles in between, scorned by one and doted by another.
She lashes into him, with the tiring crack of a proverbial leather whip, reiterating his failure and inability to give her what she so desperately desired. It is difficult to swallow, and though he is a King carrying the massive burden of many, there is little more damaging to the tattered shreds of his still-pained soul than the hurtful words of his adoptive daughter. She looks to him with distaste and disdain, and for a long moment, he realizes he is looking into the eyes of an immediate stranger - a leech, seeping away at him, with little care for the callousness of her words. She had come to them, damaged and broken, and he had known the moment his dark red eyes had met the murky brown of her own, she would never be mended by their love and affection. She would suffer, with fragmented pieces of her heart still missing, unyielding to any adoration given her. The dejected son of a rapist and his loathsome victim, he knew the weight of such pain - she was broken, and she always would be.
Yet, there was something to be said for souls riddled with cracks and fissures. Tenacious ambition, unwavering love and compassion, seeping from the still open wounds of their shattered hearts. Within her, each of these things linger, aching to be released, yet she remains trapped, imprisoned by her own insecurity. He says nothing, allowing the echo of her voice to fill the chasm of the cave, and not once does he look to Neverwas, who trembles and quakes within his presence - ashamed; embarrassed. His searing eyes flash with anger as she lashes out once more (a final time - he will not allow her to do so again) towards her biological siblings, insinuating their existence came to be from a feeble attempt at mending two broken hearts, but she has never been more wrong. His heart swells heavily within his chest, and he is forced to swallow his words, which lay just beneath his tongue. She knows nothing; she is a child. Let her fester. Let her seethe.
Her final words attempt to lay some sort of shame on him, though the shame lies only within her.
At last, softly spoken words emerge from Isle's soft lips, murmured so closely to his ear that he nearly flinches again. She admits fault, and he looks to her once more, brow furrowed. He does not speak a word, but the disapproval is heavy in his gaze. He could not disagree more. He could not imagine a more doting, attentive, nurturing mother. She lavished each with hefty layers of affection and adoration, even Lieschel, and yet somehow the most bitter of their brood somehow found fault in her. There was a pang of something he could not quite grasp when his gaze meets Lieschel's once more, and he pushes it to the side. He is weary, pained and wounded - he knows not to vocalize, not yet. He will say something he is certain to regret; he knows.
Gently, her lips travel along his jaw, causing the tension to fade away as she murmurs gentle words he hardly deserves. Even imperfect love is worth fighting for.
His heart clenches tightly in his chest, and he presses his cheek to hers, desiring to draw her closer and yet too weak to entertain the idea for long.
Finally, his trembling son steps forward, though he had been looming close to him since he had stepped forward from the shadows. He attempts to comfort the infuriated, pained child (and she is just that - though she claims to know love, to vow devotion, she is immature and childish in her words and actions) that had only moments ago lashed out at him, with hushed words and promises that would one day be broken. Promises were merely formed from good intentions and held little weight, but that was something each and every one of his children would learn in time. He swallows what feels like bile pressing at the back of his throat, but it is emotion that lingers instead. He is speechless, unable to describe the way his heart tears in each direction - torn apart by one; mended (or so he thinks - the echo of his words are meaningful, sincere, and yet Offspring is not sure of anything now) by another.
His heart aches and grows heavier by the moment. He cannot both be terrible and wondrous in the very same breath, and he knows that in reality, he is settled somewhere in the middle. Mediocre, at best. Though he strives to provide protection, affection, safety - he has failed. Somewhere along the line, his words and actions had fallen short, and he had failed the ones closest to his heart. Though Neverwas' words are gentle, soothing and afflicted with an anguish all its own, they do little to console the agony of his breaking heart.
The damage is done. He is too far gone, now.
He has nothing left to give. Not tonight.
His eyes look for a long moment at Lieschel, observing her with a depth of sadness that no words can properly express. There are no words to describe the way her words etch a grievous wound into his heart, and he has nothing to give her. She loathes him with such fierce resolution that she is lost to him, and it takes every fiber of his being to tear his eyes away from her.
"If you are so miserable, Lieschel - so neglected - then go. Nothing stops you now," He murmurs, his voice heavy with emotion. He cannot look at her as he utters these words; there is no betrayal deeper or more damaging than the disrespect and rejection of a child. "you are grown now. We have given you shelter, affection, attention, and yet somehow it has not been enough. Come to me when you are able to compose yourself. You are my daughter, until the day you choose not to be."
His heart swells once more - he cannot bring himself to look into the eyes of his son, who pleads desperately for his approval, for his affection. He is spent. Physically and emotionally, he is merely a husk. Empty.
"You are my son, Nevi. You will be my son until my dying breath," - or yours, he doesn't say, knowing his own life will never see its end. "seek me out. You know that you can come to me, with anything. Come to me in the morning. For now, I need to rest. I cannot take handle another moment more."
Exhausted and worn, he presses his whiskered lips gently against his lover's jaw. The heavy swell of her belly presses against his own, and he longs to be near to her again. He looks longingly into her doe eyes once more, pleading in a way that words could never express. He craves her touch and her presence, and he aches to settle his tired bones in the deepest crevice of a nearby cavern, lost with her and her alone until dawn.
He steps in front of her, nearly stumbling past her as he rounds off, pressing his cheek against her flank as he steps uneasily onto the permafrost. His heavy obsidian body glimmers gently beneath the moonlight, streaks of both fresh and dried blood highlighted across his marred flesh, and weakly, he disappears into the heavy shadows of night.
OFFSPRING
THE FIRE AND ICE KING OF THE TUNDRA
I'm sorry, it's terrible. That was a lot of emotion to put into one post. D:
The moment my anger, my fear, and my panicked words fall from my mouth all I know is guilt. I hadn't even noticed the smell of blood, old and coppery, but still there as a faint scent in the air. My nose tingles with the smell of it and all I can think of is the way Nevi had smelled that one day years ago. I see the weariness in Dad’s form, see the way his shoulders seem to slump just a little. Is that from us? Is that from the trials we are putting him through? Is that from mom? What had happened to him physically that made him look so worn?
Gods above….what have I done?
I can't even look at Nevi. I know his heart is breaking in his chest. My sweet Nevi who would do anything for anyone. Who had done more for me than anyone and I had hurt him. I had done what I had asked him not to. I had thought burying it deep down would be okay. That I would be able to get passed the hell I had lived through that first year. And it had worked for a while. I had been able to coax Nevi a little more into the light.
He must hate me. For lying. For being untrustworthy. For not being worth it after all. Mom has to regret bringing me home. Dad has to regret agreeing. I was nothing. Nevi might be named Neverwas as some cruel joke but I was nothing. I should have been Nothing. Not this pretty name. Not his Lee.
And then Mom is there. And I inhale a gasp of pain I can't help. Her words bite me back and I shrink away at the pain etching itself through my heart. Just as I start to take a small step backwards I stop myself. It hurts. It hurts so much that in can hardly breathe but I'm not going to let them know. Maybe then, maybe then I can pretend to be strong enough when they tell me to leave.
Gods….I'm a grown mare and I still feel like that yearling they brought home except then I had been happy. I had a home. I tried to ignore the feelings of how long it might last before they get tired of another little black filly that wasn't theirs.
If I knew what mom….isle (did I have a right to call them my parents anymore)....was thinking I would have argued that I did not think Argo and Lissie were any less. It was not them I was mad at, hurt by, it was not the babe she was carrying. It was them...my parents….the couple that adopted me whom I felt neglected by. I can't say anything else. I don't even try. I stand there, solid and cleanse my face of my emotions. I take the flickers of fear and panic and hurt and all those emotions that made me feel weak and I close them off. I hide them behind a blank face, the one I had perfected that first year of my life. I stare at my parents. And I steady myself. A deep breath. That I take and release as I wait for Offsprings verdict.
But Nevi surprises me. And I turn with a flicker of surprise in my eyes, only a flicker that is gone almost as quickly as it shows, to look at him. (The pain in his eyes flays me wide open.) “It’s no one's fault.” He says. I want to argue. Of course it is. All mine. If I had never found him that day in the Playground...I can't think that way. I can't bear to think of how he might be now without me. It sounds...arrogant I suppose to think you made that much of a difference in someone's life. But I knew that I had played a part in Nevi’s life. I know he might still be in the dark if I hadn't dragged him back out so many times to the light.
But I say nothing. Meeting his eyes with that carefully blank one I have been bringing out more and more as I mask my hurt.
And he surprises me again when my name slips from his lips and his body moved closer in the pale light of the moon. He presses his face to mine and I tremble against his touch. My strength and my weakness. I would do anything for him. But what he asks me to do...I struggle with. My eyes close with the battle I start to wage. The war against being not good enough combined with the love in my heart I tried to stomp out. I shouldn't love Nevi but I do. I can't imagine a world without him. A place where he's not there and I can't see his smile. I shouldn't love Mo- Isle and Offspring ( pain shooting through my chest) either but I did. And Maribel, our little piece of sunshine. And I loved Argo and Lissie and I would love that little baby when it came out...well, even if I wasn't here I would love it.
I want to argue with him again. They can't love me. Not after the pain I saw on their faces. Not after the words I shouldn't have ever let out. No...they won't. I'll have to leave...even though of course I was going to before anyways. And I'll be without a family again.
Before I can say anything he's turning to mom and as he steps forwards I step back. I step back closer to the darkness that I had pulled him out of. I step back until the moon no longer touches me and they can't see the tears on my face as Nevi speaks. So beautiful...so brave. My Nevi. And he turns to the man we...he...calls Dad. (Would I still have that chance?) My heart might burst with pride. I would always know how much this moment would mean to him when they gather him back up and reassure him. When they might tell them their doubts and fears but still love him.
It would be better if I stayed here in the dark. I might break Nevis heart but Argo would be there. And I could get Maribel to promise me she would keep him in the light. Yes. That might work. I could do that. I could let him go so he has his family.
It is Da- Offsprings words that hurt me the most. As it should. As I had hurt him. As I lashed out without a thought or a care to anything in the world except my own anger. My own pain. Never taking in the thought of how it would hurt them...these words that should have never been said. “I’m sorry.” I say in a whisper that I am not even sure if he heard as he stumbles past mom and leaves the cave. What had I done?
“You are my daughter, until the day you choose not to be."
His words snaking back through my mind and giving me the first little bit of hope that lights up my chest before I have a chance to smother it. Hope was dangerous. Hope made you feel when it was better not too.
“Even imperfect love is worth fighting for.”
Mom….Isles words add to that and I'm so fucking scared.
Another step back into the dark.
“Even if we’re not perfect. Even if we’re jagged and broken and slowly bleeding out inside and we don’t know how to find the words to say we desperately need to hear it, they will always, always love us.”
I was. So broken. Still bleeding. I don't know how to let go of it. How to move past it.
“But please, please be brave with me. Can you do that, love? Can you do that for me?”
He asks for so little from me. And I can't even do this one thing. I can't be brave. I don't know how. I only know how to distract. I know how to pretend and play act. I know how to push it away until it doesn't hurt as bad. I know how to live but I really don't know how to be alive. I ache for Nevi’s touch.
I don't deserve it. So in the quiet after Dad’s departure I am quiet as well. Once for glad of my black coat and nearly black eyes. Except for… ”I...I didn't mean it Mo-.” I clamp my mouth shut on the words choking back the name. I would understand if she didn't want me anymore either. I stay there in the dark as I watch Nevi and Isle. “Will you tell him…” no, I would have to do it. I sigh my sides scraping against the cave wall as I slide back further. “Nevermind….I….I’m sorry.” and then I am quiet. Shutting my eyes and placing my cheek against the cool damp walls.
(not horrible. It was a good post. Sorry for no html...and other stuff like italics for the quotes. But I couldn't wait to get home to post it. )
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