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how well you walk through the fire - Deimos - 06-16-2020
The Sword held on for as long as he could, before the iron, the mettle, the grit, the vehemence, started to slowly shatter around him.
Minute at first, the cataclysms unwinding, unfurling, from his grip, hands and fingers shaking, the composure lost and far-gone. The stoic balances, the reserved, tenacious calm, receded, no longer so resounding, no longer forged in steel. The enterprise of calm, collected poise, of a monolithic distinction, lost their peaks and summits, eroded into hills, into pitfalls, into dust and decay. He felt like falling, falling, falling, letting everything he’d ever kept below the surface to scrape, to tear, to push him down into those drowning doldrums. He felt like suffocating, asphyxiating, permitting the noose to slip around his neck and choke, strangle, until there was naught left but his bones, his anguish, his despair. Maybe, if this hadn’t happened so many times before, he wouldn’t have snapped and crackled, he wouldn’t have whittled down into bits of ash and dust.
So perhaps the Reaper had returned after all; his scythe invisible in his hands as he’d asked for guidance, as he’d asked for doors, as he’d asked for the ability to protect them. Unbeknownst, unaware, ignorant to a fault because his confidence, his strength, his fortitude would’ve seen them all through. Because he would’ve stood tall and proud and defiant to the rest, to stare the world in the face and laugh at its bellows. Because he would’ve looked down upon the world in his vicious wake and thought himself some guard, some soulless shield to ensure their survival.
He’d come for her, for him, for all of them in his cloaks and daggers, in his specious, stupid resolve. What had his bravery done? What had his might consumed? What did it matter, really, in the end? He should’ve been more. Should’ve been better. Should’ve been wiser.
Maybe she’d known all along that he wouldn’t amount to anything, that after all these years of Kings and Thieves, of golden spectacles and worn-out death, of Generals and Penumbras, he still wouldn’t be enough. That he’d test and puncture and pierce and bruise without meaning to, foolish and ridiculous, consumed with the notion that he could spin sedition, that he could win over the monsters, the demons, triumph in trickery.
Outside her room, in the midst of silence, he reluctantly sank down to the floor. The beast eventually, painstakingly crumbled, a meticulous corrosion, a released disintegration, until perhaps he was nothing but ether, smoke, fumes, and vestiges. He tucked his head in between his knees, gasped for air amidst the inaudible sobs, the gravity of his undoing. What he’d done. What he’d smothered and pilfered and killed. [say]“I am sorry,”[/say] he spoke and wished she could hear him. [say]“I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry,”[/say] a repeated refrain, and maybe one could reach her ghost, her spirit, or her wraith might strike him down, and he’d deserve it. [say]“Please forgive me.”[/say] Because he’d never been enough, for anyone, for anything, ever in his life – and this consuming, swallowing, devouring moment solidified it.
RE: how well you walk through the fire - Amalia - 06-19-2020
After the trauma of Rexanna's loss, after the haunting refrain of Aoife's cries, after the night and the loss and the deaths, so many deaths, their efforts already proven on the very first night to be in vain-
Amalia is tired.
She slips back in the cursed door, past the guards with a curt nod and a declaration that all is well, there is no sign of monster or onslaught - none they need concern themselves with, at least. Then on bare feet she makes her way to the corner they have carved out for themselves, each other, where she and her Sword have claimed as haven, in search of the man who is always waiting-
Deimos is not there.
Blankly she stares at the small room, as though he might materialize if she looks hard enough. He does not - of course he does not - and there is a second where she considers leaving it at that, sinking onto the bed and letting her exhaustion and the darkness overtake her.
But then, he has always been a light when she needed it. And though it is easier for her to fade back into darkness, she cannot. Not when it is him.
She finds him not long after, following whispered directions toward the place where the body rests. She finds him by his heartbeat and his aura, his scent and his sound; she finds him by the utterly unfamiliar beating of his sobs against her soul itself, like the thunderous sea on the bulwark of his heart. Smaller, slighter, she sinks down to the floor, desperately uncertain as to how to save him and knowing that whatever it takes she must, she must.
With gentle hands she reaches out to caress his face, taking it between her palms and attempting to coax it upwards. Should that fail she will transition to stroking against his hair. [say]"Shh, Deimos,"[/say] she murmurs, fervent and desperate to penetrate the grief. The vocalization is less to actually quiet him than to act as a soothing sound, like her grandmother used to say to her. [say]"Shh, love. I'm here. It's going to be okay."[/say]
RE: how well you walk through the fire - Deimos - 06-19-2020
There were reverberations of drums inside his head; death knells and wraiths, phantoms and their persistent pursuits. War desecration had been different than this: enemies nameless, adversaries unknown, battles waged and forged. They hadn’t been known entities, just mere essences cutting through tangible lines, sent to slaughter one another. Sometimes for land. Sometimes for country. Sometimes for nothing at all but the abhorrence, the loathing, the taste and relish of contempt. He’d lacerated and bludgeoned those vessels, those intangible threads of flesh, blood, and bone, gave no credence or promise to their families when he was through, gave no vow, oath, or assurance. Cold and numb, blinded with the need to survive, with the draw of ensuring his own comrades remained.
He’d done neither now – inadvertently murdering one of his own.
The casualty mocked and screamed against the beats of his heart and the press of breath in his chest, hurt and scarred, traced inward blemishes around nefarious ribs. She’d been known, regarded, and cherished. She’d been the past, where pieces had fallen into place and plots had been concocted, and the present, the first one he’d set eyes upon in Caido, wondering just where he’d fallen. There’d be no future. No moments with her child, her husband, her family, her kingdom. Maybe she would’ve been better off with not seeing him at all; should’ve left him a ghost, a figment, a stature alone and empty.
He swallowed down the bile rising up his throat on instinct, and thought better of it after. He should’ve let himself drown, down, down, down in the wakes of all his mistakes and stupidity, of all the useless granules he’d somehow strived to muddle together. The beast could easily toil away in the darkness of his defects, faults, and flaws, driven into their fortifications, their thresholds, their portals of lacquered depravity. A return to Reaper tendencies, when he hadn’t even meant to, when he hadn’t even tried – impossible to escape the caustic predilections of his own making.
Another’s footsteps slid over stone, and the Sword yearned to hide, to smother, to suffocate in the shards of shadows. If he shrunk, collapsed, and consigned himself to oblivion, no one to see, no one to care, no one to know, then naught else would matter.
Then he knew who it was, by the presence, by the movement, by the motion, would recognize it anywhere. It serenaded and carried, slender and just and true, a relief in his soul, a breath released from the denizens of voids and hollowed sedition (she was safe, the monsters didn’t hold her) – stars and light, heavens and auras he didn’t deserve. The fiend thought to bury his entity further into the tainted lines, so she wouldn’t be scalded and burned, so she wouldn’t have to deal with his cataclysm, his downward drift into hell.
Then the Shield sunk down next to him, and the sanctity, the sanctum, of her touch and pull brought him briefly from his anchors, his tethers, his lines, blistering above the surface. Palms lifted his face upwards, to stare straight into her gaze, still swollen cheek catching the residual tears, blue eyes lined in crimson, in despair, in ruin. He shook his head in her hold, denying the acceptance, the tolerance, because it wasn’t okay, and he wasn’t sure if it ever would be. [say]“I did this.”[/say] A whisper, a multitude of hushed punishments yet to come, a pervading addition to the tomb he now guarded. [say]“I killed her.”[/say]
RE: how well you walk through the fire - Amalia - 06-19-2020
Guilt: how easy, how comfortable, how right it can feel to wear it as a shroud, envelop oneself in its embrace and give way to the eternal nothingness of righteous self-loathing. It is a familiar place for the Shield, to be sure; now she watches Deimos sink further into it, his agony as clear to her as the beat of her own heart. She remembers the moments and days and weeks after Adam, the wound that still lies open on her heart.
I killed her, he whispers, and the Shield has no response.
Nothing she says can bring back Rexanna. Nothing she does will erase his wound. Sinking lower she presses against him, offering her heart and arms and breath, wishing she could take his grief and carry it all herself. [say]"I'm so sorry,"[/say] Amalia murmurs into her husband's hair, her eyes closing to bite back the tears that jump so easily to her eyes these days. What will Kiada say when she finds out? And Sam? More thundering concerns, but they are pressed aside for later. He is her concern now, her world.
From somewhere in the temple Jyoti appears, crooning mournfully and pressing her way against Deimos' skin, into his arms if he will let her, trying to offer solace and starlight as she might. Gently Amalia strokes his back as her grandmother often did for her, wishing she could spirit them away to somewhere else, somewhere for just them. [say]"It's not your fault, Deimos,"[/say] she whispers, lips pressed against his crown once more. [say]"It's a terrible thing, but it's not your fault. She wouldn't blame you. She loved you."[/say]
RE: how well you walk through the fire - Deimos - 06-19-2020
His mind couldn’t calculate any way to make amends, any way to fix the situation. He’d always sought to move forward, onward, away from the infernal properties, to tie together broken ramparts, to render assistance, before the terrors reached or snagged at his limbs, at his bones, at his shattered remnants. The strangling nothingness was left in the wake of disastrous accord, where he could mire his figure, his frame, into its denizens and see no reason, no effort, to leave its clutches. The beast had fought hard to gain his redemption, to rise above sins of the past, only to find himself immersed in them once more.
Surrounded and pervaded by the Shield, the Sword wanted to desperately fall apart and remain together all at once. What managed to withstand were the splintered fragments of his soul, the eldritch, behemoth sways, and the smallest modicum of control, composure, he had left. Soothing balms of her words, her phrases, hovered, and he was sorry too, sorry for so many damned, doomed things. His breath rattled within his lungs, against his ribs, as if they were caged, yearning to escape the trapped bombardments of his own making.
Jyoti’s appearance, a soothing balm he couldn’t possibly fight, eased the strain he’d put in his shoulders, a binding, blinding sanctum he didn’t deserve. The little whale segmented herself in the crook of his neck, and something like an inaudible sob escaped his throat. The tremors and shudders reverberated through his skin as the heathen clenched his jaw, attempting not to collapse in on himself. An argument, a default position died on his lips, yes it is closing in behind him. There was no one else to blame: he’d been the one to ask Safrin to make the door, even after her lectures, even after she insisted on the simpler tidings, on traditional pursuits.
She wouldn’t blame you. She should’ve, if the Penumbra wasn’t already snapping, loathing, upon him from wherever her soul had gone. She loved you. He’d done the same for her, cherished and beloved friends, acceptance, tolerance for who and what he was. [say]“And this is what I gave her in return.”[/say] Death.
A pause choked over him in the haunting poignancy, in the sway of claws and nothingness, the charred, electrical scents permeating back through his mind – another nightmare to add to the abysmal collection of terrors, trials, and tribulations. [say]“Is it true I will not see her again?”[/say] To plead and beg for forgiveness?
RE: how well you walk through the fire - Amalia - 06-19-2020
[say]"You didn't do this."[/say] Again she says it, vehement and impassioned, though she doubts very much that he will hear. They hadn't known that the door would harm Rexanna, and it had been her choice to go through it instead of sending someone else. Her choice to Ascend, and the Voice's to cause this discord in the first place- to create the monsters they fight year by year, and do nothing about it. [say]"The Voice had the ability to stop the monsters- Rexanna told Frey. But for some reason they decided to wait until next year."[/say] If it had been done earlier, even by a year, none of this would have happened. None of it. They would all be safe under a starry sky, instead of mourning their dead before a night had passed.
Again she wishes she could carry his burdens; again she knows she can't. Will he see her again? His friend, his family? Resolution strengthens in Amalia's throat, blazing in her mind because this, at least, she can do something about. [say]"Yes,"[/say] the Shield answers firmly, squeezing her husband against her chest. [say]"We are going to find her soul - wherever it is - and return it to Mort, where it belongs. And there she'll wait for us, happy and safe, and one day you will see her again."[/say]
RE: how well you walk through the fire - Deimos - 06-19-2020
The piercing denial longed and yearned to slip across his lips - yes, I did, yes, I did - to feed on the guilt and burrow into the stone, become marble and monolith, still and stupefied in his grief. The Reaper was never permitted to flicker into his melancholy beyond a brooding configuration, the shadows in the dark, but here, here, he couldn’t stop the clawing, the rasping, the tearing of his blackened, acrid heart. Allowed to love and cherish in return, and then blister when it was torn away, nothing to grasp hold of now, to keep the Penumbra with the rest of them.
And he’d have to tell Kiada –
The notion spun into his throat and he thought about choking on the air, on the expanse, on the soulless void lacerating him from the inside out.
But Amalia’s words echoed and reverberated, piercing through the threshold of his self-loathing. His gaze followed into hers, narrowing as much they could with the swollen ramparts, striving to follow in the confusion, in the parallels, in the faults and flaws. [say]“What?”[/say] They could’ve stopped it? The calculations, the machinations, spiraled and curled out of the fumes and plumes, and his jaw snapped shut, an audible clenching this time, twisting and distorting somewhere in the midst of a brewing, brimming rage. [say]“Why would they-“[/say] wait?
Unless they didn’t want to stop them. Unless the reign of terror was justifiable, suitable for them. Unless everything the Voice had done, had tried, stayed committed to its demonic form.
He grabbed hold of her hands, fingers enclosing, striving to ground himself in between and amongst the storm of emotions. It was a turbulence the beast was unaccustomed to – except for the boiling anger (he knew that one well). The Sword heard too many things about souls lost and gone, tilting his head in her presence, something in his ribs resting, tired of trying. [say]“How?”[/say]
RE: how well you walk through the fire - Amalia - 06-19-2020
[say]"I don't know."[/say] A question for Sam, and perhaps the decision he mentioned before- though in Amalia's mind her brother's stance on the issue is vastly different from the truth. Anger ripples through her, an easier, welcome reprieve from grief, sending an array of feline features flickering over her face. [say]"Why does the Voice do anything?"[/say] For power, for maniacal, nefarious purposes. For death and destruction. For herself.
She lets him take her hands and more, lacing fingers and squeezing tightly, her skin and pulse given to him. His face is as broken as a boy's, tearing wounds into her heart; she wishes she could wipe away every tear, every scar, bring joy back into the sea-blue eyes.
How? [say]"She keeps their Souls. The Voice."[/say] Steel in her eyes and tone, anger again at this injustice. [say]"Ludo- it's looking for a way to retrieve them, along with Mort's daughter. I promised to help how I can... Deimos, we will free her."[/say] An oath, a promise, the only thing she can do for him now. It does not change the past, but perhaps it will give light to his future. They will free them all, the souls held captive, and they will mete out justice against the Voice.
RE: how well you walk through the fire - Deimos - 06-19-2020
They’d been through these tumultuous eaves before, when the blight spread and nothing happened for it. They’d done their best to alleviate, to eliminate, and what had the Voice done in return? What had the Ascended done to ensure it ceased? Promises, vows, convictions it wouldn’t happen again? And they could’ve had a chance, an opportunity, to cease and desist the monsters’ reign altogether? Perhaps it was merely estimation, a guess, an assumption, but the fire, the inferno, the distaste registered in his ribs and carved out a niche. Maybe it was a method for her to pull him away from the grief, from the melancholy, from the hole he’d dug himself within – but there was still blame in his heart for himself, and that would likely never quite fade.
The loathing merely slunk together with the sorrow, and made for an anthem drumming in his chest. The contortions were eerily similar, familiar, to irreverence spread through a Reaper’s hold and grasp, calloused palms across a blade’s pommel, as he pledged devastation upon an enemy.
And now? Now? Is that what they craved? Another opponent? Another adversary? Hadn’t he asked Bastien the same?
He breathed easier, a sigh released across the stone, across the echoing halls, across the hollowed darkness. The sobs lessened to an even keel of rapacious breathing, coaxing down the fire that threatened to brim and brew over, rapacity sharpening across flesh and blood. The Sword used the Shield like a lifeline, a moor, a tie to stop the impending fall, scrabbling for purchase over the grasping, grating, gnawing wake; head above the surface, reaching for clarity, for justice. Fingers laced and taut, mind remembering to inhale, to exhale. [say]“The monsters tried to use you.”[/say] To get him to open the door, to make him listen to the sharpened outcries, the mimicking devices of her screams, of her pain, of her torment. A caution, a warning, and likely the only one he’d give – not stopping her from her missions, faith in her measures. He was just sick of the torture. [say]“I cannot do this again.”[/say] Live in the agony, in the thrall, of their capabilities, in LongNight's terror – if the Ascended couldn’t do it, wouldn’t, then maybe it would be up to them.
Souls caught, captured, and taken, and he sat up straighter, against the wall, a hundred considerations in the well of his despair, in the wretched remorse. He raised his head to lean against the cold, hardened stone, eyes glancing at the ceiling. [say]“Would she even want that?”[/say] Would his starving need for redemption even be craved? Or were they content to remain in the Voice’s clutches?
RE: how well you walk through the fire - Amalia - 06-22-2020
That the monsters attempted to use her voice against him demonstrates cleverness and cruelty she cannot abide. What pain would it have been, to hear his voice call out to her? How strong could she have been, faced with such a thing. No- the Shield would like to think she would not, could not succumb. That mistaking him is outside of her ability, for she knows him as keenly as she knows her own heart. [say]"You would know me anywhere. And I you. But... maybe we should use a password, like last year. Something only we would know."[/say]
She leans forward, drawn to him, a planet to the sun. Forehead touches forehead and eyes close with a sigh; maybe they cannot endure another year of this, but they have endured thus far. She can only hope and pray and long for a time when it will be easier. A time that failure and defeat and hardship has proven unlikely to exist.
Breath stabilizes, finds a rhythm, shared movement and shared air. [say]"She would,"[/say] Amalia responds with the confidence of belief, of faith in her views and in the goodness of Mort's realm. [say]"To be with us? With Kiada, and her family? Of course she would."[/say] Sighing, she lowers herself to sit beside him, leaning against his side. [say]"We're going to free them all, Deimos- everyone in the Voice's clutches. All the souls. We're going to find them, and we're going to bring them peace."[/say]
RE: how well you walk through the fire - Deimos - 06-22-2020
Deimos had endured for lifetimes, stood against loss after loss after loss as a stoic, proud monolith, a towering, infernal slate of sedition. Perseverance ran through his blood and coiled in his veins, carved out the fibers in his mettle, the pale scars riddled across his form. But even the mightiest mountain tended to erode, weathered, beaten down, slowly corroding from the onslaughts outside their sanctums. It was exhausting to linger in the void, in the agony, in the grief for eternity, bear the brunt of despondency, desolation, and death, to stare into the void and watch their wraiths flicker off, to be left behind, to be the one who’d caused it all. Between Rexanna’s demise and the monsters wreaking havoc in his mind, he’d bombarded tiers of assaults with little to show for it, but the fatigue behind his eyes, but for the weight pulsing, pervading, aching through his shoulders. Had he been permitted, the beast would’ve taken any amount of pain and misery piercing through the Penumbra. He would’ve absorbed the anguish, the despair, the torment. He would’ve done anything for her – and the circumstances merely lacerated deeper into his broken, battered heart.
Passwords; attempted last year to no avail on their unwinding ends – unnecessary when they’d promised to open apertures every damned time there was a knock. [say]“You may decide,”[/say] a low whisper, signifying he’d already done enough damage, his plans deemed worthless and all the more devastating.
But he didn’t want to do this again – year after year, facing the possibility of his loved ones sinking into nothing, into desecration, into disaster. Amalia dying. Kiada failing. Rexanna perishing. Enough was enough, and while the Sword could withstand the world crashing down around him, he couldn’t bear to watch those he cherished succumb to the same.
Then she was there, in his essence, in his presence, and it might’ve been the only thing holding him together. His brow met hers, his tired eyes closed, and he choked back another sob threatening to unravel, undo, unfurl everything he kept tied, tethered, knotted, and noosed. Steadying breaths layered in his chest, leaning into her entity, maintaining the barest semblance of composure beside stars and cosmos, and not deserving any of it.
The beast didn’t let go as she curled into his side; otherwise he’d sink, deeper and deeper, beyond stones and floors, down into catacombs and tombs, where he belonged. He listened, apt to do for an eternity (and what he should’ve done all along), to the confidence in her tone, to the faith instilled, to the assurance he no longer held.
Free them all. Each and every soul.
[say]“Okay,”[/say] too tired to argue, too tired to figure out how it would even occur, too tired to pierce and piece it together – if it was another mission doomed to fail, if everything they did or committed themselves towards even mattered. Another sinking feeling flickered through his chest, and he thought to lean forward again, to hide, to contort and dissolve. [say]“I have to tell Kiada.”[/say] About her mother, about his actions, about false protection, and broken, whittled promises.
RE: how well you walk through the fire - Amalia - 06-25-2020
She sighs at the undertones of his permissions, the unsaid chastising he makes upon himself. Something she has been guilty of time and time again, far more prone to self-flagellation than he, yet also more apt to shake things off, shrug and release the pain in pursuit of the next adventure. How much has he carried on his shoulders, unsaid? How much more can he possibly bear?
[say]Lavender,[/say] she answers, a secret word for them alone. A light in their darkness, a scent, a soothing memory. Lavender, and the warmth of a summer breeze, and the promise that she will be there no matter how he stumbles, no matter where he falls.
I have to tell Kiada. Every ember lit within her, the passion born from purpose- all of it extinguishes at that fateful declaration, those terrible five words. Amalia had all but forgotten the relationship between Penumbra and Harpy; now she balks, dark eyes widening as painful awareness fills her mind with dread. [say]"Oh, Kia,"[/say] she murmurs, tears stinging sharply and blurring her vision; [say]"Oh no."[/say] The death of a mother when she was gone.
It is a feeling Amalia knows too well.
And the guilt that Deimos must feel toward the girl who is as good as his daughter...! The Shield tightens her grip upon him, wishing more fervently than ever she could carry this weight. [say]"Do you want me to do it?"[/say] is a soft, whispered offer, anticipating the rebuttal before it is said. [say]"Or to be there? Or... just tell me what you need, Dei."[/say]
RE: how well you walk through the fire - Deimos - 06-25-2020
Broad shoulders and Atlas ways had characterized his existence; and now it pummeled, cracked, and frayed, encouraging him to sink below its weight. For his crimes and penance, for the lives he couldn’t save, for all the multitudes, fractions, and factions that bore nothing but tombstones, catacombs, and phantoms – Rexanna’s to be added to the conflagration of horrors and terrors. Ghosts in shells and fragments, joining the others in their solemn graves, reminding him of his limitations, of his mistakes, of calculations rendered and gone horribly awry. Maybe time would give him the expanse, the healing, he required – until something else snapped, until something else unfurled, until some other failure rang its siren call and he inclined towards its reckless endeavors out of habit. No more he yearned to beg and plead, because he was gone and done, because there was nowhere to flee from the self-loathing, because every breath was a reminder that the Penumbra was no longer here.
A great shuddering exhale left his chest, and he stared straight ahead, into the ether, into the void, into the darkness (waited for something to swing, to decimate, to lacerate). His eyes only inclined back towards her on the silent word, on the stretch of steadfast faith and hope, on whims that represented beliefs and creeds; on the wedding gift not with him now, but in his bag. The Sword ducked his head out of shame and humiliation, clenched his jaw tightly, and wondered how anyone could tolerate his presence. Capable of destruction and not much else; a never-ending ruin from the hilt of his blade, down to the restless, chaotic semblances of his heart.
Her murmurs nettled and thorned into his side, and he lifted a palm to drag the tears reforming in the corner of his eyes, striving to steel, to fortify, for the rest of the agony to come. Not just his to bear, but the Harpy’s; the brutal resignation of things eternally lost between them. No further attempts at reconciliation. No mother to offer rancor towards. No remnants of another time, another place, where it hadn’t all been so wicked, so draining, so obliterated.
The Shield’s offers were benevolent, but he’d be the one to take Kiada’s anger, rage, malice, and everything else in between, the responsibility laden upon him, the fool who’d set it all in motion. [say]“I will tell her,”[/say] uttered on a sigh, on the foreboding measures yet to come. Maybe she’d burn and curse him and he’d lose her too.
The fiend swallowed down another rising bout of bile, the choking noose closing over his throat, fingers clasped and intertwined within hers, shaking his head, the uncertainty, the unknown, clawing down his chest, eating away at marrow and bone. Another scar, turned inward, carved out in eclipses and daggers. Deimos didn’t know what he needed – had always mourned alone, quietly, in the corners of a world far, far away, left to become shadows, mist, and abhorrence, returning as nonchalant, as chilling, as the mountains they’d resided within. [say]“You are here.”[/say] Which was far more than he deserved. [say]“That is enough.”[/say]
RE: how well you walk through the fire - Amalia - 06-29-2020
It stands to reason he would take this latest burden, would insist on bearing the cross that comes with telling the Harpy of her mother's death. Out of a place of pain, a misplaced sense of responsibility and guilt, a need to make some false wrong right. [Say]"It isn't your fault,"[/say] she repeats yet again, a hymn she will throw against the bulwark of his soul until finally it makes it through. The monsters, the deaths, the years of darkness and mistakes: they stretch back further than the Sword could possibly reach, further than the Shield.
Back to one point and one alone. None of this would have happened, had it not been for the Voice.
For now, though, she will settle in with him, acting as the shield to his flood of pain. Fingers entwine in his again; she runs her hand down the small of his back, a comforting action taught by wiser woman to a young, mournful girl. [Say]"I'm right here,"[/say] the waif reavows, promises against the curve of his neck. [say]"I'm here for you. Always."[/say]
And though time may make a liar of her, siren songs and threats of horror coaxing her back out .. for now the promise is a true one. She is here with him, for him, as his, throughout this longest dark.