It was different this time—
It was different from every other time: it was his raw, wounded heart, beating and bleeding and full of salt and gravel, it was the darkness lingering in his shadow and wrapping spindly fingers about his ankles and tugging him back, back, back—
It was Wessex, who was both light and soothing water, the Wraith in the darkness yet somehow the sun; it was Wessex, not a Queen but a friend.
Someone who remembered.
Someone who had seen the wolf pup in Rory at the Festival of Lights, someone who had always left her door open for him, someone he felt like he kept letting down by being such a depressive failure and yet she did not give up on him.
It was different because it wasn't Jigano (he loved Jigano, and Jigano practically lived there, so it was not all that strange that he received many an embrace from him, now, was it?), and it was different because her strong arms wrapped around his narrow chest and he held her as much as he was held and his heart beat for both of them.
He was content to stand there in silence, the vibration of his life stuck between them, in his veins, her words moving the small hairs by his ear and his soul wondering what on earth he had done to deserve her devotion. (Loyalty.)
Finally, he began to relax—just the shift, the easing across his shoulders, and with a sigh he turned to rest his cheek against her shoulder. "You always come back for me," he said quietly, glad that she was there, that she was real, and not just a ghost of his guilty mind.
It was different from every other time: it was his raw, wounded heart, beating and bleeding and full of salt and gravel, it was the darkness lingering in his shadow and wrapping spindly fingers about his ankles and tugging him back, back, back—
It was Wessex, who was both light and soothing water, the Wraith in the darkness yet somehow the sun; it was Wessex, not a Queen but a friend.
Someone who remembered.
Someone who had seen the wolf pup in Rory at the Festival of Lights, someone who had always left her door open for him, someone he felt like he kept letting down by being such a depressive failure and yet she did not give up on him.
It was different because it wasn't Jigano (he loved Jigano, and Jigano practically lived there, so it was not all that strange that he received many an embrace from him, now, was it?), and it was different because her strong arms wrapped around his narrow chest and he held her as much as he was held and his heart beat for both of them.
He was content to stand there in silence, the vibration of his life stuck between them, in his veins, her words moving the small hairs by his ear and his soul wondering what on earth he had done to deserve her devotion. (Loyalty.)
Finally, he began to relax—just the shift, the easing across his shoulders, and with a sigh he turned to rest his cheek against her shoulder. "You always come back for me," he said quietly, glad that she was there, that she was real, and not just a ghost of his guilty mind.
