yeah I got heartbreak that I reminisce about
Jack’s voice follows them like a hook dragged through water, snagging on the softest parts as he strolls away, and when he recites the line from her letter it feels less like sound and more like a hand reaching into her chest and squeezing. The sky has gone almost fully violet now, the last smear of gold thinning into nothing, and for a moment she can’t quite tell if the sting behind her eyes is from wind or salt or something far more humiliating. She lifts her chin anyway, because that is what she has always done when cornered, when wounded, when exposed, and the tears that scrape at the backs of her eyes burn but do not fall. He throws the words carelessly, as if they are theatre, as if they are nothing but melodrama scrawled in ink, but she remembers the weight of that night, the way her hand shook over parchment, the way every sentence felt like sawing through bone.
"I said I didn’t have it in me to be queen if there was another war," she whispers, and her voice is thin at first, then steadier as she forces it through the tightness in her throat, "but I’ve been fighting for you for far longer, and… I can’t do it anymore." The words hang there between hulls and rigging and darkening sky, not flung, not weaponized, simply laid bare. She glances at Kaisel then, a small, sad smile touching her mouth because while she's never told him the full contents of that letter, she doubts any of it surprises him. He knows what she is capable of giving until there is nothing left but smoke. "That’s what came after," she adds softly, shoulders rising in a faint shrug that carries more history than explanation.
The Ark is already moving, sails catching wind, Jack’s whistle cutting the air as he turns his back, and the tension that has been wound through her spine since they anchored over the Maw finally loosens all at once. It leaves her hollowed and shaking, adrenaline draining in a rush that makes her knees feel unreliable and her lungs too full and too empty all at once. She huffs out a breath that is almost a laugh, almost a sob, almost relief, and then she turns and presses herself squarely against Kaisel, forehead finding the solid warmth of his chest as though it has always known the exact place to land.
"I hated that," she mumbles against him, voice muffled in fabric and skin and the steady beat beneath, the tremor finally allowed to surface now that there is no audience for it, "but we did it." Her hands clutch at him with something that is not just desperation but gratitude as well, and she rises onto her toes to press a kiss to his lips, soft and lingering and real in a way nothing else tonight has been.
"I said I didn’t have it in me to be queen if there was another war," she whispers, and her voice is thin at first, then steadier as she forces it through the tightness in her throat, "but I’ve been fighting for you for far longer, and… I can’t do it anymore." The words hang there between hulls and rigging and darkening sky, not flung, not weaponized, simply laid bare. She glances at Kaisel then, a small, sad smile touching her mouth because while she's never told him the full contents of that letter, she doubts any of it surprises him. He knows what she is capable of giving until there is nothing left but smoke. "That’s what came after," she adds softly, shoulders rising in a faint shrug that carries more history than explanation.
The Ark is already moving, sails catching wind, Jack’s whistle cutting the air as he turns his back, and the tension that has been wound through her spine since they anchored over the Maw finally loosens all at once. It leaves her hollowed and shaking, adrenaline draining in a rush that makes her knees feel unreliable and her lungs too full and too empty all at once. She huffs out a breath that is almost a laugh, almost a sob, almost relief, and then she turns and presses herself squarely against Kaisel, forehead finding the solid warmth of his chest as though it has always known the exact place to land.
"I hated that," she mumbles against him, voice muffled in fabric and skin and the steady beat beneath, the tremor finally allowed to surface now that there is no audience for it, "but we did it." Her hands clutch at him with something that is not just desperation but gratitude as well, and she rises onto her toes to press a kiss to his lips, soft and lingering and real in a way nothing else tonight has been.
real big things I still gotta figure out
