07-17-2020, 02:40 AM
“I know when you go
down all your darkest roads
I would have followed all the way
to the graveyard.”
down all your darkest roads
I would have followed all the way
to the graveyard.”
She recognizes the look on his face – disappointment. She is used to it, has seen it so many times before. From him, from Dhumin, from Skellig – everyone. Time and time again she has fallen short of their expectations; never quite as bold or as loyal or as obedient as they want her to be. When the shame rises up, from her chest and into her throat, spreads like heat across the top of her skin, she thinks she would rather choke on it than to continue to withstand his stare.
There is an apology somewhere, burning at the edge of her tongue, but she lets it turn to ash. He doesn’t want an apology – she already knows that. He wanted her to be willing and complaisant, and when he lets the alien disappear into the trees, the full weight of her fault settles uneasily over her. She had half expected him to kill the creature if she did not, and the fact that he released it unscathed reiterated that this mistake was entirely her own.
Her breath hitches in her throat at his touch, at his question. “Yes,” a quiet affirmation. As if she could ever forget. As if it had not been a defining moment in her life, as if it had not turned her into forever being the queen who lost her eyes to him.
As if it was not the very foundation to whatever they had become.
She doesn’t move, even if she knows what’s coming. She knows, because it’s what she always expects – though he frequently surprises her, reminds her that he can hurt her in countless ways. But there was a part of her that always knew she was one misstep from losing her eyes again, and there is a peculiar kind of relief in knowing it will finally happen.
That the anticipation is finally gone.
It doesn’t keep her from trying to recoil. It was basic instinct, futile though it was. But much like that day in the dale, the shock of having the first eye ripped out freezes her where she stands. She cries out, the sound ragged in her throat, but she does not try to run. Then they are both gone and she is left with that phantom feeling of wanting to blink blood from the eyes she no longer has.
The blood glistens, iridescent beneath the light of her halo, bright red and morbidly beautiful set against the stark white of her skin. A broken, bleeding angel, trembling before a dark, wrathful god, and still she wants him. There is fear and shame and regret and desire churning in the pit of her, but never is there any part of her that doesn’t want him.
She can never decide if that is her fatal flaw or her saving grace.
She knows how to find him, even in the dark. She steps towards him, hesitant, following that pull she always feels when he is near. She can taste her own blood on her tongue when she asks him, “Is this your endgame?” It would make sense – for them to come full circle, to end where they had begun. Nothing about her has ever really made sense, though, and the feeling of what she wants his answer to be is no exception.
There is an apology somewhere, burning at the edge of her tongue, but she lets it turn to ash. He doesn’t want an apology – she already knows that. He wanted her to be willing and complaisant, and when he lets the alien disappear into the trees, the full weight of her fault settles uneasily over her. She had half expected him to kill the creature if she did not, and the fact that he released it unscathed reiterated that this mistake was entirely her own.
Her breath hitches in her throat at his touch, at his question. “Yes,” a quiet affirmation. As if she could ever forget. As if it had not been a defining moment in her life, as if it had not turned her into forever being the queen who lost her eyes to him.
As if it was not the very foundation to whatever they had become.
She doesn’t move, even if she knows what’s coming. She knows, because it’s what she always expects – though he frequently surprises her, reminds her that he can hurt her in countless ways. But there was a part of her that always knew she was one misstep from losing her eyes again, and there is a peculiar kind of relief in knowing it will finally happen.
That the anticipation is finally gone.
It doesn’t keep her from trying to recoil. It was basic instinct, futile though it was. But much like that day in the dale, the shock of having the first eye ripped out freezes her where she stands. She cries out, the sound ragged in her throat, but she does not try to run. Then they are both gone and she is left with that phantom feeling of wanting to blink blood from the eyes she no longer has.
The blood glistens, iridescent beneath the light of her halo, bright red and morbidly beautiful set against the stark white of her skin. A broken, bleeding angel, trembling before a dark, wrathful god, and still she wants him. There is fear and shame and regret and desire churning in the pit of her, but never is there any part of her that doesn’t want him.
She can never decide if that is her fatal flaw or her saving grace.
She knows how to find him, even in the dark. She steps towards him, hesitant, following that pull she always feels when he is near. She can taste her own blood on her tongue when she asks him, “Is this your endgame?” It would make sense – for them to come full circle, to end where they had begun. Nothing about her has ever really made sense, though, and the feeling of what she wants his answer to be is no exception.
ryatah
@[Carnage]