05-02-2021, 04:39 PM
If a halo could sit jauntily, that is how she would describe the one above his head, crooked and wry, laughing at some half-remembered joke, but the smile on his face is no different than that of any other skull - crocodile wide. Beryl is vaguely aware of her own halo, a shining light that fills the forest darkness, its warm glow full of false hope. It can't heal the shattered feeling that wells up sharp against her breast-bone.
For a moment, she only stares back at the eyeless thing that watches her with its graveyard grin, and she is tempted to say that she does not recognize him at all. Only the Bodach sits easily in her mind with his black bones made of dull shadow, but the rest? Recognizing a skeleton takes so much more attention to detail than she can stand to give it, staring at them makes her angry. It makes her nauseous and horrified and sad, and she balls it all together into a hard little ball of venom and poisons herself with it a little more each day.
So she wants to tell him that she doesn't recognize him, because it's easier to add to her collection of hurts and self-hatred than it is to admit that as soon as he speaks, she does, and that, maybe, she had missed him too.
And that he is one of the last horses that she would have wanted to see, would have wanted to see her.
Like this.
She hadn't realized her own vanity until he's there, laughing at her like before, as if they aren't all monsters, all just dead things pretending they're still alive, and she's left wondering how her heart could possibly feel as if it's dropped into her stomach.
"Cassian?" She knows it's him, but she questions it anyway, "You survived the Eclipse."
To be honest, that is something of a surprise.
If you can call this living," she says, gesturing bitterly to the bony plate of her shoulder.
For a moment, she only stares back at the eyeless thing that watches her with its graveyard grin, and she is tempted to say that she does not recognize him at all. Only the Bodach sits easily in her mind with his black bones made of dull shadow, but the rest? Recognizing a skeleton takes so much more attention to detail than she can stand to give it, staring at them makes her angry. It makes her nauseous and horrified and sad, and she balls it all together into a hard little ball of venom and poisons herself with it a little more each day.
So she wants to tell him that she doesn't recognize him, because it's easier to add to her collection of hurts and self-hatred than it is to admit that as soon as he speaks, she does, and that, maybe, she had missed him too.
And that he is one of the last horses that she would have wanted to see, would have wanted to see her.
Like this.
She hadn't realized her own vanity until he's there, laughing at her like before, as if they aren't all monsters, all just dead things pretending they're still alive, and she's left wondering how her heart could possibly feel as if it's dropped into her stomach.
"Cassian?" She knows it's him, but she questions it anyway, "You survived the Eclipse."
To be honest, that is something of a surprise.
If you can call this living," she says, gesturing bitterly to the bony plate of her shoulder.
@[Cassian]