REXANNA
they said you were the crooked kind
The wink and smile are quickly lost on him as she returns to look back at the moonlight – letting the information sink in. She knows what it entails, and she cannot tell him. Not out of fear, but because it’s better that he doesn’t know. But the next few words from his lips, as he steps up behind her and looks out over the moonlight streaming softly through the windows as well, cause a pause within her. He tells her he’s not worth it – and she almost forgets about the second half of what he says. She steps back slightly, into him, and rests her head on his chest without looking up to him. “You’re worth it to me.” She almost whispers, pausing to chew on her lip. Everyone else in her life so far hadn’t come close – they hadn’t treated her the way he had, the care and courtesy, the fear of trying out this whole relationship after she’d been burned too many times. She almost felt like a used cigarette, lit only to be put out shortly after.
Then lit again.
Then put out.
With Bastien she felt like she was a fire that wouldn’t be put out, that he wouldn’t allow it. Not in this world, or any of the others, she felt like a better version of herself when she was with him. And it was because of him that she can think those thoughts. Whatever Zariah has in store can’t blemish that light, even if it wavers in her eyes. Her shadowed eyes aren’t shadowed for herself, they are shadowed for him.
“I’m sure I will find out soon enough.” She pauses, finally answering the second half of his words. “I have done many awful, terrible things in my life.” She murmurs quietly. “I have been pegged a traitor, a murderer. They called me the Aurelian Siren, once.” She recalls, as though she’s reciting the pages of a book. The Golden Siren, a woman caped in gold, devouring men. It's a blasphemous idea, but it might paint a picture in Bastien's mind at the kind of woman they thought she had been. At least he sees the truth in her. “But then they whispered and called me the Deceiver, tossed me into the dungeon, brought me back home to my country to watch it burn.” She shrugs slightly, tilting her head up to look at him in the filtered moonlight. “And I let them burn it. We’re all killers in a way, murderers, people who have done terrible things to survive.” She ponders, eyes far away and almost distant as she thinks it through. “But I am a survivor, and if I survived those I can certainly deal with this.” She says simply, honestly, offering him the smallest of smiles.
She turns to him then, her chest against his as she lets her sapphire gaze linger on his face – a pale hand reaching up to rest along his neck as she stroked his cheek with her thumb. “Cages can be broken, Bastien. I am proof of that.”
but you were always gold to me
