COLT
She's a runner, she's a lover, always stuck in her ways
Pull her closer, think you know her, now she's turning the page
She gave a warning if it's storming, she'll be gone with the rain
Pull her closer, think you know her, now she's turning the page
She gave a warning if it's storming, she'll be gone with the rain
The more he explains, the deeper into it all she wades, the water line rising up like a cool hand pressing over her face, delicate in the way it means to smother her. Memory is starting to feel less like something she can depend upon, despite how often she's leaned against it to prop herself up before. It seems too malleable now, crumpling under the weight of where she presses against it, no better than butter left out on the counter. How often she has strolled through her past in the quiet of every night, revisiting stories of hurt and hope alike, comfortable with the familiarity even if the story ends the same.
The pages of him are dog-eared and worn, and yet there's still details she discovers anew with every re-read. Even now, the small sounds of his disagreements as she turns one chapter or another over cause her to waver, and it encourages her to glance back at the tale and find a different sort of change. Amid the scraping feeling of being watched, a fragile relief surfaces briefly, similar to scratching at an itch better ignored. She has read these things to herself so often, alone, that the company of him seated beside her is momentarily welcome. How nice, to be read to for once.
When the tide of everything shifting through her can no longer bear containment, the hesitant attempt from him to take some of it threatens to undo her further. It's the same care she'd convinced herself he'd never had, unable to reconcile the shape of him leaving could be the same one that once held her so tenderly.
She gathers herself in silence for a moment, a quivering breath pulled in and held, then smoothed out on an exhale that attempts to empty her. It's a futile attempt, though she keeps at it under the careful rock of his voice through the dark, neat as any knife. It flicks up against every pain point she's had for the past year, lulling her into a version of stillness against the grass as it unhooks each spine that he'd left snared inside her, or that she'd set there on his behalf.
He says it again, hate, and where her gaze rests upon him, tilted on the ground, her brow pinches in. "You took all the things you think you know, and still got this so wrong." Her volume has dropped low enough that it can steady, softness filling it rather than accusation. "Not every thought is complete. Or true." Maybe arrogant of her to try and explain a mind to a telepath, but she's wandered her own enough to be familiar with those truths. Like art, the finished piece often strays from its first sketch, and this feels like he acted before the paint dried. An easy enough claim for someone who only sees the end results and does not have to bear witness to the process.
Yet, in all the ways she has failed to understand him, she's surprised that he's managed to do the same, given the uneven footing they've been on all this time. "You never knew enough if you thought I'd hate you." Her fingers slip from her hair as she extends that certainty with a confidence that has stayed firm when others have gone frail. "Or be free of you." Looking at him sprawled out beside her, she can remember the exact way his constellations briefly darkened beneath the clasp of her hand when it would roll over them, testing the outline of him so she'd never lose the shape of it. She could never forget him. Even in his absence, he's been with her every day. The light in her night sky, the heat behind every glass of rum, the wind that carries over the desert. Even with everything removed or rearranged, the imprint where he'd been remains in her chest, such is the weight when she invites trust.
A sigh knocks in her throat and she loses the trail of her thoughts to properly hold the new weight he sets down. She hadn't fully grabbed hold of the implications of everything he's shared tonight, unable to see past the hounding of her own misery, but it settles fully now. "I've no intention of punishing you." The sound of her voice flakes away from her lips, barely roused around the bite of her cheek. His own Nestor, and far more potent than any of hers, trusted now to sit with it for the sake of letting her breathe easier. It only manages to do the opposite, strangling the air from her chest wholly.
He'd meant to spare her, she believes that now with a certainty she hadn't thought possible an hour ago, but the only thing he'd spared her had been choice. This, from a man who had once worked so hard to never lead her, but walk beside her as if equal. All the wondering how she'd been so blind. All the frustration at reading them so wrong. All the shaken confidence. Unintentional, but this truth doesn't soften what came before it. If anything, it makes it ache in places she'd mistaken for scar. It seems that more than her thoughts are capable of scoring them accidentally.
Despite everything he's taken from her, he returns it all with something else. Not enough to replace it, but enough that the careful, painful generosity manages to arrange all the pieces he's created out of her into something that still attempts to feel whole. "Thank you," she whispers after a long moment spent coaxing her chest back into something useful. Gratitude arrives tangled hopelessly through grief, impossible to separate, but it's genuine. "It means more..." she falters a touch, and a dry, humorless sound slips past. He's already arrived along with her at the significance of being allowed to understand what has tried to swallow her for so long. "No, I guess you do know." Her voice stays small, edging past where he follows her in his mind, as unshakable as her own shadow.
Slowly she turns onto her side, allowing her to more easily see him as her cheek nestles against the curl of one of her arms in the lawn. For all the ways he's stripped her down, he's done the same to himself. For her. That doesn't pass without notice, blurry as sight has become. Cautiously, because there has been so much that's cut lately, her other hand slides through the grass to find his fingers buried in the blades. Not forgiveness, not a promise, just a bid for comfort when so much has been otherwise.
The pages of him are dog-eared and worn, and yet there's still details she discovers anew with every re-read. Even now, the small sounds of his disagreements as she turns one chapter or another over cause her to waver, and it encourages her to glance back at the tale and find a different sort of change. Amid the scraping feeling of being watched, a fragile relief surfaces briefly, similar to scratching at an itch better ignored. She has read these things to herself so often, alone, that the company of him seated beside her is momentarily welcome. How nice, to be read to for once.
When the tide of everything shifting through her can no longer bear containment, the hesitant attempt from him to take some of it threatens to undo her further. It's the same care she'd convinced herself he'd never had, unable to reconcile the shape of him leaving could be the same one that once held her so tenderly.
She gathers herself in silence for a moment, a quivering breath pulled in and held, then smoothed out on an exhale that attempts to empty her. It's a futile attempt, though she keeps at it under the careful rock of his voice through the dark, neat as any knife. It flicks up against every pain point she's had for the past year, lulling her into a version of stillness against the grass as it unhooks each spine that he'd left snared inside her, or that she'd set there on his behalf.
He says it again, hate, and where her gaze rests upon him, tilted on the ground, her brow pinches in. "You took all the things you think you know, and still got this so wrong." Her volume has dropped low enough that it can steady, softness filling it rather than accusation. "Not every thought is complete. Or true." Maybe arrogant of her to try and explain a mind to a telepath, but she's wandered her own enough to be familiar with those truths. Like art, the finished piece often strays from its first sketch, and this feels like he acted before the paint dried. An easy enough claim for someone who only sees the end results and does not have to bear witness to the process.
Yet, in all the ways she has failed to understand him, she's surprised that he's managed to do the same, given the uneven footing they've been on all this time. "You never knew enough if you thought I'd hate you." Her fingers slip from her hair as she extends that certainty with a confidence that has stayed firm when others have gone frail. "Or be free of you." Looking at him sprawled out beside her, she can remember the exact way his constellations briefly darkened beneath the clasp of her hand when it would roll over them, testing the outline of him so she'd never lose the shape of it. She could never forget him. Even in his absence, he's been with her every day. The light in her night sky, the heat behind every glass of rum, the wind that carries over the desert. Even with everything removed or rearranged, the imprint where he'd been remains in her chest, such is the weight when she invites trust.
A sigh knocks in her throat and she loses the trail of her thoughts to properly hold the new weight he sets down. She hadn't fully grabbed hold of the implications of everything he's shared tonight, unable to see past the hounding of her own misery, but it settles fully now. "I've no intention of punishing you." The sound of her voice flakes away from her lips, barely roused around the bite of her cheek. His own Nestor, and far more potent than any of hers, trusted now to sit with it for the sake of letting her breathe easier. It only manages to do the opposite, strangling the air from her chest wholly.
He'd meant to spare her, she believes that now with a certainty she hadn't thought possible an hour ago, but the only thing he'd spared her had been choice. This, from a man who had once worked so hard to never lead her, but walk beside her as if equal. All the wondering how she'd been so blind. All the frustration at reading them so wrong. All the shaken confidence. Unintentional, but this truth doesn't soften what came before it. If anything, it makes it ache in places she'd mistaken for scar. It seems that more than her thoughts are capable of scoring them accidentally.
Despite everything he's taken from her, he returns it all with something else. Not enough to replace it, but enough that the careful, painful generosity manages to arrange all the pieces he's created out of her into something that still attempts to feel whole. "Thank you," she whispers after a long moment spent coaxing her chest back into something useful. Gratitude arrives tangled hopelessly through grief, impossible to separate, but it's genuine. "It means more..." she falters a touch, and a dry, humorless sound slips past. He's already arrived along with her at the significance of being allowed to understand what has tried to swallow her for so long. "No, I guess you do know." Her voice stays small, edging past where he follows her in his mind, as unshakable as her own shadow.
Slowly she turns onto her side, allowing her to more easily see him as her cheek nestles against the curl of one of her arms in the lawn. For all the ways he's stripped her down, he's done the same to himself. For her. That doesn't pass without notice, blurry as sight has become. Cautiously, because there has been so much that's cut lately, her other hand slides through the grass to find his fingers buried in the blades. Not forgiveness, not a promise, just a bid for comfort when so much has been otherwise.
When she's in it, she's all in it, ain't no holding her back
When I'm with her, she's a river moving steady and fast
She's afraid of all the ways her heart is broke like glass
When I'm with her, she's a river moving steady and fast
She's afraid of all the ways her heart is broke like glass
Received a Gilded Market wig from Remi that resembles her usual hair and is enchanted to stay on better than most wigs | has a reverse centaur tattoo on her left hand with the legs going down her pointer and middle fingers that looks like this.
