12-07-2021, 12:30 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-07-2021, 12:46 AM by Illum.
Edit Reason: he’s not a caveman
)
ILLUM
He does not miss the way she armors herself behind too much tension and a building glow of light that spills from her skin like morning come undone, come too fast, come trapped beneath her skin. It chafes at his dark until he can feel the places she carves into him - every place he presses against her because he cannot stop himself, does not want to try. He won’t let her see the way she hurts him, the way even this softest of glows is enough to cleave the layers of shadow and night from the dark of his midnight bones.
He thinks this is a pain he would choose again and again.
He thinks he would choose her again and again.
When she softens in his embrace, he notices that too. A sigh of sweet summer breath against his neck, of muscles gone slack and soft and the rose-gold light drained out of her. He holds her closer now that he knows she doesn’t mind it, traces his lips along the curve of a dappled neck and over the slope of shoulders too delicate to bear the weight of these burdens she now carries. He nearly asks her if she knows why someone killed Ryatah, if she knew if there was a purpose to this murder or if it were something random, something unrelated to the archangel. He wonders, because he wonders if that same someone will try to come take another pale angel, he wonders if Este has even spared a single thought for herself.
He thinks she has not, and maybe it is only the darkness inside his chest that makes him wonder at such things. A violent possessiveness she so effortlessly keeps at a steady roil in him simmering just beneath the surface. He thinks he can be gentle for her, that he can be twilight instead of midnight, stardust instead of dark space. But he thinks that when those soft brown eyes finally find someone better to fall into, he will not be gentle for them.
He wonders where Ryatah’s body is now, wonders if anyone thought to bury her. Bury or burn or reduce to stardust. Even in death the archangel deserved more than to sit in the sun and rot. But even he knows better than to ask Este this last question, to make her think of her mothers body with its heart ripped out. “I gave her a feather made from my dark the last time I saw her.” His words are something quiet, something distant where he whispers them into the silk of her hair. “I told her to touch it if she ever needed me. I knew she wouldn’t. Even as friends we were better with distance between us. Like stars.” A wry smile, dark and full of bitter regret.
A lifetime passes in a single moment of quiet where he is lost somewhere else, thinking of an archangel he had tried to love, an archangel who had been the only one stubborn enough to stay, to befriend him. To show him the gift and the cost of letting someone in. “I hope very much that you are not like her. Not in that way.” There is sorrow in his stardust face now, but it is something he holds close and private, something he does not allow to spillover and burn the delicate girl who tastes like flowers beneath his dark lips. “From the moment I saw you here beside the lake, I had no intention of leaving.” His eyes wander over the angles of her pale face, drinking in the way it feels to have her asking him not to go, to have her lips against his neck when he is sure he does not deserve any of her affection.
He reaches for her again anyway, tracing stardust over a pair of delicate cheekbones, over lips that are the perfect shape for the way he remembers her breath catching at his touch. “I will stay until your Queen chases me out, Este. And perhaps once she does, you will have found a reason to return to Taiga with me.” His eyes are sharper now, a shade of gold made darker with a desire he buries beneath the curve of a tight smile. "It's late, little love. Where do you sleep?"
He thinks this is a pain he would choose again and again.
He thinks he would choose her again and again.
When she softens in his embrace, he notices that too. A sigh of sweet summer breath against his neck, of muscles gone slack and soft and the rose-gold light drained out of her. He holds her closer now that he knows she doesn’t mind it, traces his lips along the curve of a dappled neck and over the slope of shoulders too delicate to bear the weight of these burdens she now carries. He nearly asks her if she knows why someone killed Ryatah, if she knew if there was a purpose to this murder or if it were something random, something unrelated to the archangel. He wonders, because he wonders if that same someone will try to come take another pale angel, he wonders if Este has even spared a single thought for herself.
He thinks she has not, and maybe it is only the darkness inside his chest that makes him wonder at such things. A violent possessiveness she so effortlessly keeps at a steady roil in him simmering just beneath the surface. He thinks he can be gentle for her, that he can be twilight instead of midnight, stardust instead of dark space. But he thinks that when those soft brown eyes finally find someone better to fall into, he will not be gentle for them.
He wonders where Ryatah’s body is now, wonders if anyone thought to bury her. Bury or burn or reduce to stardust. Even in death the archangel deserved more than to sit in the sun and rot. But even he knows better than to ask Este this last question, to make her think of her mothers body with its heart ripped out. “I gave her a feather made from my dark the last time I saw her.” His words are something quiet, something distant where he whispers them into the silk of her hair. “I told her to touch it if she ever needed me. I knew she wouldn’t. Even as friends we were better with distance between us. Like stars.” A wry smile, dark and full of bitter regret.
A lifetime passes in a single moment of quiet where he is lost somewhere else, thinking of an archangel he had tried to love, an archangel who had been the only one stubborn enough to stay, to befriend him. To show him the gift and the cost of letting someone in. “I hope very much that you are not like her. Not in that way.” There is sorrow in his stardust face now, but it is something he holds close and private, something he does not allow to spillover and burn the delicate girl who tastes like flowers beneath his dark lips. “From the moment I saw you here beside the lake, I had no intention of leaving.” His eyes wander over the angles of her pale face, drinking in the way it feels to have her asking him not to go, to have her lips against his neck when he is sure he does not deserve any of her affection.
He reaches for her again anyway, tracing stardust over a pair of delicate cheekbones, over lips that are the perfect shape for the way he remembers her breath catching at his touch. “I will stay until your Queen chases me out, Este. And perhaps once she does, you will have found a reason to return to Taiga with me.” His eyes are sharper now, a shade of gold made darker with a desire he buries beneath the curve of a tight smile. "It's late, little love. Where do you sleep?"
@Este