Evie
Just as she cannot hide how her heart is splintering, nor can he hide - from her, at least - the regret he feels at having caused it. But he hasn’t, and she cannot bear to let him think that. To comfort him or herself, she isn’t sure, but she reaches for his hand as if it could pull them both from this reality with the strength of her grip alone. If she just holds him close enough, maybe, maybe, maybe -
Because how is it fair that so many will be safe in the refuge? That so few will stay to fight, and fewer still called to the very forefront of the battlefield? And how is it fair that the gods themselves - who have spited and spurned Evie enough in her life, haven’t they? - choose to take him? Him, who she -
Who she loves.
Small though the seed may be in its infancy, it is there. Hidden away from sight, nurtured slow and steady, not yet ready to spread its roots. But there, and all the more painful because of it.
Her sight of him begins to blur, and Evie blinks helplessly in an effort to see him clearer. To put his own emotions before her own, as she has always tried to do, because so often his needs and desires have been pushed aside by people too selfish to tend to him. She doesn’t want to be that person ever, much less right now. “I’m supposed to be the one telling you that,” she croaks, and tries for some small undertone of a laugh that comes out so many shades of broken. Don’t comfort me, she wants to command him with a strength she can’t find, not when it’s you who has to go. In his hand, her own trembles, clammy with fear for him.
“I don’t want you to go,” she confesses shamefully in a rush of words, mouth shaking, pursed at the corners in a vain attempt to withhold very real tears. “And I know I can’t say don’t, and I’d never - not really - I know you must, and likely would even if they didn’t tell you to - and of course I trust you! Your skill, and -” her warbling worsens as she rushes to try and explain, to be honest without making him feel guilty, gods forbid, as if he has any true guilt to bear no matter what she knows his mind must be telling him. Traitorously, a tear escapes, streaking so fast down her cheek from being pent up that it falls right off her chin then and there. It wobbles seconds later. “I’ll protect Halo, I don’t want you to worry about anything but yourself. I just - I just -” the air seems so very thin, and far too scarce.
She feels even sicker with guilt for her own emotions, for not being strong enough to take this news with grace and poise as others close to him might display. But the fear she already felt - for him in general, for their people, for what fate the war may bring - it is so much sharper and more present now with this news. And Evie, for all her strength and resilience in all other ways, is not strong here. In her heart. It breaks before the reality of losing him.
She splutters, the entire barrage of words earning no more than a single ragged breath between sentences as she strives to get it all out at once. Until there’s nothing but the core of what she hadn’t wanted to say, lest the sincerity of it make him feel even worse for telling her, when she wouldn’t have wanted it concealed from her anyway. “I just don’t want to l-lose you,” she manages, and the tears begin to fall.
Because how is it fair that so many will be safe in the refuge? That so few will stay to fight, and fewer still called to the very forefront of the battlefield? And how is it fair that the gods themselves - who have spited and spurned Evie enough in her life, haven’t they? - choose to take him? Him, who she -
Who she loves.
Small though the seed may be in its infancy, it is there. Hidden away from sight, nurtured slow and steady, not yet ready to spread its roots. But there, and all the more painful because of it.
Her sight of him begins to blur, and Evie blinks helplessly in an effort to see him clearer. To put his own emotions before her own, as she has always tried to do, because so often his needs and desires have been pushed aside by people too selfish to tend to him. She doesn’t want to be that person ever, much less right now. “I’m supposed to be the one telling you that,” she croaks, and tries for some small undertone of a laugh that comes out so many shades of broken. Don’t comfort me, she wants to command him with a strength she can’t find, not when it’s you who has to go. In his hand, her own trembles, clammy with fear for him.
“I don’t want you to go,” she confesses shamefully in a rush of words, mouth shaking, pursed at the corners in a vain attempt to withhold very real tears. “And I know I can’t say don’t, and I’d never - not really - I know you must, and likely would even if they didn’t tell you to - and of course I trust you! Your skill, and -” her warbling worsens as she rushes to try and explain, to be honest without making him feel guilty, gods forbid, as if he has any true guilt to bear no matter what she knows his mind must be telling him. Traitorously, a tear escapes, streaking so fast down her cheek from being pent up that it falls right off her chin then and there. It wobbles seconds later. “I’ll protect Halo, I don’t want you to worry about anything but yourself. I just - I just -” the air seems so very thin, and far too scarce.
She feels even sicker with guilt for her own emotions, for not being strong enough to take this news with grace and poise as others close to him might display. But the fear she already felt - for him in general, for their people, for what fate the war may bring - it is so much sharper and more present now with this news. And Evie, for all her strength and resilience in all other ways, is not strong here. In her heart. It breaks before the reality of losing him.
She splutters, the entire barrage of words earning no more than a single ragged breath between sentences as she strives to get it all out at once. Until there’s nothing but the core of what she hadn’t wanted to say, lest the sincerity of it make him feel even worse for telling her, when she wouldn’t have wanted it concealed from her anyway. “I just don’t want to l-lose you,” she manages, and the tears begin to fall.
a golden cage, for all its worth and beauty
is still just a cage
is still just a cage
