stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires
And at last, she was alive again.
Perhaps not whole, perhaps not healed, and perhaps she would never be those things—but her face turned willingly at his touch, though her eyes remained downcast. The low glow of pale and shuttered lanterns reflected upon her wet cheeks.
Trapped, in stone and in darkness, he missed the sun with a ferocity that threatened to pull him apart. He was an animal sitting in the dark, thinking of how fast the brilliant sun would've dried the tears from her cheeks, but out there was only death and snow and darkness and their shortcomings. Despite everything, their courage and their sacrifice, they had failed.
She fell against him and he was more than willing to catch her, letting her rest against his neck and chest; a twitch passed silently over his face as she connected with bruised and broken nerves in his shoulder.
But she was worth more than a little pain and discomfort. He shifted beneath her lean weight, unafraid, brazen now that she no longer seemed like she would flee him, and put both of his arms around her. Held her against his chest. Rested his cheek against the top of her head, one of his hands stroking her back in an absentminded manner.
"I know," he murmured, because he knew: his mother had died ten years ago, driven mad with something (a dream of freedom, perhaps) until she walked into the barrier. She had never told them why, if she thought that she could somehow pass through it—if she had believed it so badly she had staked her life on it, or if she had simply wanted an end.
He still remembered, vividly, the fear and the shock when they brought him and Karlia into the Infirmary, their mother laid out on one of these beds, just as dead as everyone else who went into it. Melted from within.
Her face had looked peaceful, though, in a way she hadn't in years.
He couldn't remember if Rishima had been there, but perhaps she had. She had still been alive at the time, after all, but he had not known her well enough to care in the ensuing blur of his world falling apart. He sighed softly against Amalia's hair, the daughter of that ghost, his hand wandering in little patterns over her shoulder-blades.
Perhaps not whole, perhaps not healed, and perhaps she would never be those things—but her face turned willingly at his touch, though her eyes remained downcast. The low glow of pale and shuttered lanterns reflected upon her wet cheeks.
Trapped, in stone and in darkness, he missed the sun with a ferocity that threatened to pull him apart. He was an animal sitting in the dark, thinking of how fast the brilliant sun would've dried the tears from her cheeks, but out there was only death and snow and darkness and their shortcomings. Despite everything, their courage and their sacrifice, they had failed.
She fell against him and he was more than willing to catch her, letting her rest against his neck and chest; a twitch passed silently over his face as she connected with bruised and broken nerves in his shoulder.
But she was worth more than a little pain and discomfort. He shifted beneath her lean weight, unafraid, brazen now that she no longer seemed like she would flee him, and put both of his arms around her. Held her against his chest. Rested his cheek against the top of her head, one of his hands stroking her back in an absentminded manner.
"I know," he murmured, because he knew: his mother had died ten years ago, driven mad with something (a dream of freedom, perhaps) until she walked into the barrier. She had never told them why, if she thought that she could somehow pass through it—if she had believed it so badly she had staked her life on it, or if she had simply wanted an end.
He still remembered, vividly, the fear and the shock when they brought him and Karlia into the Infirmary, their mother laid out on one of these beds, just as dead as everyone else who went into it. Melted from within.
Her face had looked peaceful, though, in a way she hadn't in years.
He couldn't remember if Rishima had been there, but perhaps she had. She had still been alive at the time, after all, but he had not known her well enough to care in the ensuing blur of his world falling apart. He sighed softly against Amalia's hair, the daughter of that ghost, his hand wandering in little patterns over her shoulder-blades.
