We have highs and we have lows

KIADA

your battleworn tongue doesn't say the truth;

that you are ruined

He’s her protective boon, a barrier of sorts when she can’t handle her emotions, when she doesn’t know where to start. She was all fire and stone, strength and fury, protective at the core of her heart for those around her… Yet when it came to herself, she was always at a loss. Chulane, however, has managed to chip at her beneath the mask, beneath the surface. At first it had terrified her, but now it comes so naturally as she sinks into his arms and his chest, as she looks up to him with a soft smile through her sorrow.

The comment of those traits being passed down to her spark another set of tightness to her throat, a sharp swallow as tears try to fight to the surface of her eyes again. But she swallows them down with a nod, burying her face into his chest again, arms tightening around him as if he might never leave. “The people of the Grounds voted for her when the last queen stepped down.” She says quietly, muffled, but knowing he’d hear her.

“She wasn’t expecting it.. She was still blind at the time and hadn’t put her name in.” And Kiada remembers her indifference, her bitterness. But she pushes those aside as well, because her mother had been happy to help, to fix their home. And that was what made the difference between Helovia and here.

and you wonder why he lets you,

the butcher

touch him

the sun