that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
Firion is a creature of multiple faces—masks upon masks. Sometimes he is his father’s son. He is sarcastic, apathetic, his voice a studied drawl with syllables that elongate on the tongue. Other times, he is the rakish prince he might have been once. Born of old blood and old crowns. Arrogant and sneering. Confident in his strength and his youth and his ability to heal. And other times, he is overly exuberant. Hungry for experiences. Overeager to flirt and indulge and race and drown in manufactured good times.
But here, before her, he is stripped raw.
He is kind and gentle—tender.
And the worst is that he doesn’t know which is the truth of him. Not anymore.
Not when he knows what lies beneath is rotten, decaying, broken.
His eyes widen slightly when he takes in the world that they had created together. (That she had created, he corrects, because he has no gifts with which to make the glorious world that she had made.) It is grey, dying, and he aches because he feels so strongly that it is a reflection of him. Why would this world not have died when he does that every night? His throat closes up with all the apologies he should say.
Instead though, he finds himself overwhelmed with her. The way that she has grown into herself. The delicate way that she moves through the dream. The impossible blue of her eyes.
“You’re more beautiful than I remembered,” he says before he can stop himself, memorizing the lines of her face, wondering if he could carry that with him during the next night. Would he be able to hold onto that piece of himself? His jaw clenches when she tells him he was the last to have visited her. “I tried to come back,” he says quickly, not willing to tell her how difficult it was to sleep these days.
She was too beautiful, too kind, to know that truth of him.
He wasn’t sure he was willing to even admit it out loud.
So he pushes it to the side as he steps toward her, his heart pounding in his chest, the air feeling like water as he moves through it. “I have thought of you every day,” he admits, careful to not lie.
“You have no idea how happy I am to have found my way here.”
How happy he is to be here in this world where death cannot touch him.
To be with her.
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
