To love with an iron fist

Jude

Somebody ought to corrupt me on the dance floor
And take me home

How anyone could be so close to her and ever pull away is something Jude's mind can't comprehend, and he isn't sure he will even be able to when it becomes necessary. But she weaves strength everywhere she touches him, pours it into his soul through his ears, his eyes, his nose. It's like the moment of peace when drowning becomes stillness, but this time there's something worth all the suffering waiting on the other side.

For the promise of that kind of peace, Jude would do anything. He sits rapturous beneath the palm she lays over his heart, any trembling he may have felt before quelled in an instant. Her voice sways between suede comfort and obsidian gravity and drags him along with it like her consonants have barbed hooks. 

"I understand." For relief, for freedom, he will do all of it. And he will find a way to keep that vessel as far from the world as possible so that her warning will never need actualization. 

"And then I'll come back, so you can keep me safe from feeling it ever again." She deserves certainty here, there is no room for his own self-doubt to shadow and crowd the promises he makes on faith. "Thank you, Safrin. Thank you. For...everything," he whispers, eyes dancing between Safrin's softly smiling face and the dragon beside them. Jude has to find something beautiful now, something to reflect his heart - a heart she says is beautiful, is as Vi always intended it to be - but she has already taken his heart and given it living, breathing form. He can only endeavor to find a second best option. 

Leaving her means pulling the weight of it all back onto his shoulders, but it is the only way he will prove his strength to her. Maybe even to himself. 

It starts with standing, then it's merely a matter of one foot at a time from there. The slumbering dragon is gently pulled into his arms, and Jude looks a little taller standing in her starlight as he takes a moment to drink her in before he has to leave. "I love you," he tells her, and for once doesn't overthink the words when he shares them, no flush or shyness to be found. She'll know what he means - the particulars of his feelings, caught on hooks and barbs somewhere between the sentiments of a child and a man. Pure, and maybe a touch naive. If he does this right, maybe it will be the only love he has to know. 

- Fin

Show me all my desires and dark sides
And pretend by night's end you won't leave me alone