Amalia
For my part, I know nothing with any certainty
He wants to stop her, to tell her she cannot go. Amalia does not need to hear the words, to be told and threatened and begged to know- she can hear it in his silence, not the normal comfortable stoicism but the muted pressure of a winter storm, weighing down upon the bakery with weight to rival her electric still. Amalia does not need to see him fret, to watch him pace or puzzle to know- she can see it written in his silence, his reticent stance, the way he passes the apple through his hands, not eating, not settling, a storm beneath the stoic mountain, an earthquake in the deep.Amalia does not need him to make his desires obvious, because his reticence and hesitation are fears they share between them, because if she could keep him from going back she would give her heart and limb and life, sacrifice to keep him safe. I cannot bear to lose you is a chord between them, tenuous and unsaid, tight and tautly wound. Why should you give yourself to the world, when you belong to me?
How can I claim to love you, if you don't?
Their eyes meet from across the shop, stone sinking into the sea, and all the unsaid things are a hurricane raging through her mind, louder than any cry or shout, silent as the grave. Her fingers clench upon the counter, her toes curl tightly on the ground, as she waits for him to judge her statement, to accept or defy, question or command. Stubborn, stalwart, she hunkers down, prepared to make her final stand, to push and plead and fight against him, to prove her worth again and again. I can contribute, I can help. Let me be your shield. When he opens his mouth at last to speak she is ready for denial, ready to be shot down, ready to rally against his protection, ready for anything except-
What else can you bring?
It is all Amalia can do to keep from flinching, a flicker of pain running across a face which quickly closes, angular lines as hard as stone, something sharp and cold in her eyes. So she had been wrong, all this time- it was not fear for her which made him falter, but a lack of faith, a hidden knowledge that she is not enough. What else can you bring, because her love, her ardency, her staff, her faith, these are not enough. It hurts in a way she did not expect, twists and lashes on her soul, because she thought, she thought, she thought, that he of all people saw her as enough.
Claw-like nails carve into the counter; fur rises over her neck, and her eyes begin to change, the leopardess rising from her fury, her pain. Somewhere outside the shop a cat yowls, and another one appears in the doorway, tense and bristling and staring at Deimos with the same intensity of the wounded, enraged girl. Remi and Rory, Ronin and Vai- these are the people he values, the ones he would take to battle at his side, and she?
She is nothing but a worthless girl, a baker playing at higher purpose, a wraith behind a shield.
"Nothing," she curls into the silence, her alto voice smoke and brittle glass, fangs behind her curled lips, ears laid flat upon her skull, an ocean of agony held at bay by the simmering wall of her wrath. "This is all I am. But I guess that's not enough."
but the sight of the stars makes me dream
