no amount of guilt can change the past && no amount of anxiety can change the future
It hurts; every word is a lance against her back, another lash over her skin, because they sound just like him, these words, the pleas. Because it's everything she wants to hear - that he loves her, that he came back for her, that he's hers - and yet Amalia knows it isn't true. Can't be true, because his lips are cold and he has no heartbeat and he smells like metal instead of skin, because he's not alive, he's not alive, he's not alive---
"Stop it," Amalia half snarls, half pleads, the feathers of her wings rippling with tension. She turns on her heel back to Adam, and there is no mask to cover how much this kills her, nothing but longing and pain and wishes backed by steel resolve. "You didn't come back for me. You came back because of her. And she didn't save you, Adam. She stole your soul. Ripped you away from Mort's light and brought you back as a shadow of what you were, so you could be her pawn, tethered to her to survive--"
Again her voice breaks and she looks away. When she speaks again her voice is soft, vulnerable and low. "I would have done anything for you. When you died... I wanted to follow you. I would have traded my soul, if it meant I could have yours back. But this thing you are? I... I can't love it. It's so much less than what you should be. What he was."
"Stop it," Amalia half snarls, half pleads, the feathers of her wings rippling with tension. She turns on her heel back to Adam, and there is no mask to cover how much this kills her, nothing but longing and pain and wishes backed by steel resolve. "You didn't come back for me. You came back because of her. And she didn't save you, Adam. She stole your soul. Ripped you away from Mort's light and brought you back as a shadow of what you were, so you could be her pawn, tethered to her to survive--"
Again her voice breaks and she looks away. When she speaks again her voice is soft, vulnerable and low. "I would have done anything for you. When you died... I wanted to follow you. I would have traded my soul, if it meant I could have yours back. But this thing you are? I... I can't love it. It's so much less than what you should be. What he was."
Amalia
