my darling can you hear it? something's lurking in the leaves
I can feel its preying eyes on us from somewhere in the trees
I can feel its preying eyes on us from somewhere in the trees
In any other situation Hotaru would have much more appreciation for the splendor and power of this moment. Instead there is only the contrasting temperatures of their connected hands, the sudden peaceful silence that washes over her and eases her headache with the absence of cutlery and gossip. As her eyes adjust she takes in the private expanse of the magical island - shimmering sterling stars in void canvas, sand that brushes soft against her skin as she steps alongside Seren onto its shores. It is beautiful. Serene. A place she appreciates existing all the more for how it became a haven for her companion’s body.
When her eyes alight upon the long spiraled horn, her hand falls away from Seren’s. Everything else turns to vague watercolor shapes. There is only the staggering of her steps as she approaches, the journey feeling like miles. When she reaches him - or what remains of him, as she knows his soul no longer resides in the vessel of his body - her knees give out from beneath her and hit the sand hard. There is no hesitation as her hands find his burned body. There is nothing to be feared here, no aversion to the blackened, twisted flesh. There is no part of Atlas, even in his death, that could ever make her hesitate to reach for him.
She bows her forehead against the arch of his neck, and the tears finally come.
They hadn’t come in the moment of his death. Nor in the long empty days that followed. Not even when recounting his loss to Remi at Frey’s shrine. They do here - laying prone overtop his body as if to shield it belatedly from the blow which had torn his soul from hers, the tears finally escape. They come in loud gasping sobs, hands cradling her companion’s burned face with an unspeakable tenderness. “I am so sorry my love,” she cries, all the harder because even his scent is not the same. Ruined and overlaid by the magic that had killed him. “You never should have met me. I am so sorry. I couldn’t keep my promise to protect you.” A promise she’d vowed to the dying mother she’d taken him from - the ghost of herself. She hadn’t gone looking to bond after Alice had been taken, but she had thought maybe - just maybe - fate would be kind this time around.
She was a fool. Her soul was too rotten for anything so good as Atlas to have grown in the razed, scorch earth of her heart.
“I love you,” she whispers, tasting the salt of her own tears. Love, because it would never die, would never fade into past tense. The same words she’d sent him into the beyond with. They fall repeatedly from her lips, lacking anything else to say, until her lips are numb and eyes aching in their sockets. Incapable of tearing herself away. Content to lay here until she joins him, all other responsibilities be damned.
When her eyes alight upon the long spiraled horn, her hand falls away from Seren’s. Everything else turns to vague watercolor shapes. There is only the staggering of her steps as she approaches, the journey feeling like miles. When she reaches him - or what remains of him, as she knows his soul no longer resides in the vessel of his body - her knees give out from beneath her and hit the sand hard. There is no hesitation as her hands find his burned body. There is nothing to be feared here, no aversion to the blackened, twisted flesh. There is no part of Atlas, even in his death, that could ever make her hesitate to reach for him.
She bows her forehead against the arch of his neck, and the tears finally come.
They hadn’t come in the moment of his death. Nor in the long empty days that followed. Not even when recounting his loss to Remi at Frey’s shrine. They do here - laying prone overtop his body as if to shield it belatedly from the blow which had torn his soul from hers, the tears finally escape. They come in loud gasping sobs, hands cradling her companion’s burned face with an unspeakable tenderness. “I am so sorry my love,” she cries, all the harder because even his scent is not the same. Ruined and overlaid by the magic that had killed him. “You never should have met me. I am so sorry. I couldn’t keep my promise to protect you.” A promise she’d vowed to the dying mother she’d taken him from - the ghost of herself. She hadn’t gone looking to bond after Alice had been taken, but she had thought maybe - just maybe - fate would be kind this time around.
She was a fool. Her soul was too rotten for anything so good as Atlas to have grown in the razed, scorch earth of her heart.
“I love you,” she whispers, tasting the salt of her own tears. Love, because it would never die, would never fade into past tense. The same words she’d sent him into the beyond with. They fall repeatedly from her lips, lacking anything else to say, until her lips are numb and eyes aching in their sockets. Incapable of tearing herself away. Content to lay here until she joins him, all other responsibilities be damned.
my dear don't let it catch you - all that's left to do is run
Hotaru
