[private] even death himself pales; crowns

[rosebay]

Rosebay

Time has no meaning in death, she finds.

Was it minutes or hours? Hours or weeks?

She could not answer, even if she had the voice to do so. She could not give form to the questions that linger in the back of her mind, frozen in time as it was. Instead, she is cast into the belly of the ocean of stars, sent spinning out into the tide that washes up endlessly onto the shores of death.

It grows colder with each passing moment.

Colder as the sound of his breathing, at first a reverberating echo around her, begins to fade. As even the pinpricks of light are swallowed by the darkness that comes on faster and faster—

Until he drags her back to the land of the living.

She gasps her first breath, the cold air flooding into her lungs with frightening speed. She rolls onto her knees and closes her eyes as she continues to drag in shuddering breaths, the swear that coats him also coloring the dark mahogany of her thin neck. For a moment, there is silence as she tries to steady herself. As she ties to find the ground beneath her again. As she tries to remember what it is to breathe fully.

Finally, she opens her pale brown eyes to find him again, taking note of the exhaustion.

“Indeed,” she says with a smile that does not fully curl her lips, just a hint of her usual mask falling away to reveal the girl behind it. “I am glad that it was a lesson for us to put off for another day.”

but in all chaos, there is calculation

[crowns]

CrownS

His eyes drift upward to find the stars shining above them. By now, his family would be storming from the Tephran borders to find him. Not a night goes by without him returning to the humid jungle and to his parents. He’ll have to come up with some excuse as to why he’s been out all night, he supposes with a frown. Lying has never come naturally to him and he prefers to keep it that way.

As Rosebay’s breaths begin to steady, he looks back to her and notes the dimness of her expression. There is a flash of guilt in his chest as he scoots himself closer to her. For all his morbid curiosities and the rampant greed in him, he would not sacrifice her for this crumb of knowledge. Crowns curls his neck over hers and releases a slow sigh of relief.

“From now on, I’ll put you back together before you die, so we don’t risk that again,” he promises in a whisper. And then he rolls onto his side, his wings remaining gone while he yawns long and deep. “I think I’m going to sleep here tonight. I don’t have the strength to get home anymore. Will you stay here too?”

He lifts his head enough to watch her. Crowns doesn’t hold his breath, but he extends the invitation just the same. He isn’t sure if she can get far on those legs either.

you got me on my knees; i'm your one-man cult.

@[rosebay]

[rosebay]

Rosebay

There are a great deal many things that she feels in this moment.

The exhilaration of knowledge. The fear of what had almost happened. The curiosity of the unknown.

But she does not feel guilt—does not feel anger ash is near failure at bringing her back. So she does not recognize anything similar in him, but neither does she pull away when he holds onto her for a moment—although she considers letting it pass straight through her. Instead she remains, letting his endless warmth sink past the growing ivory and sink into her own bones, warming her from the inside out.

There is an exhausted laugh that follows, a ringing truth that he is perhaps the first to hear. “So long as you put me back together again,” her voice has a rasp to it on the edges, as though someone had taken the sandpaper and roughened up the corners. “And it will be my turn next,” a pause as she closes her eyes.

“Next time.”

Because she knows that she does not have the energy to pursue anything further today.

Instead she keeps her eyes closed, listening to him yawn and stretch—thinking about the proposal. Sleep here tonight? She has no true home to go back to—not that he knows that. She still rests her head in Pangea, more out of habit than anything, but there is no family other than her sister waiting for her.

But how does she tell him that the earth had split open and swallowed her mother whole?

That her father had gladly disappeared into the shadows in the aftermath?

How does she confess such things without making her vulnerable?

So she doesn’t. Instead she, too, yawns and stretches out her head to rest her cheek against her splayed front legs. “I supposed that I could rest,” she murmurs, the darkness of exhaustion closing in on her.

but in all chaos, there is calculation