Tomes

Noah

I'll let it burn the way the sunlight burns my skin
The way I feel inside, the way the day begins

I do. Was all he said across the bond in response, the sincerity and genuine meaning laced deep in each uttered syllable.

Noah didn’t have much left. 

Everything he’d ever held onto had been taken—ripped from his grasp, swallowed by war, by the darkness, by the gods’ own will. His parents, his brother, his wife. Friends whose names still caught in his throat when he tried to speak them aloud. All gone. 

But his children. Sah. Hotaru. But Deimos— 

Noah’s fingers twitched, aching to reach for something, for some anchor in the storm raging in his chest. He rubbed his palms down the tops of his thighs as he leaned back some and pressed his back hard into the leather chair. He had lost so much already—

Deimos was still here, still within reach, and Noah refused to let fate—let himself—strip him of someone he wasn’t ready to lose—again. He uttered a breathe, shaky and full of all the emotional tempest still churning within him. I can’t lose anyone else, Dei. You’re still here, and I can’t stand to lose you again.

I'm ready now, I'm not waiting for the other side