runaway

KIADA you love each other, you do, and here's the tragedy; it's not enough. He apologizes that they weren’t there sooner, but she doesn’t accept it. It’s not his fault, it’s not any of their faults. It just is. She shrugs her shoulders as though it doesn’t matter, uncertain of how Deimos might respond to such a gesture, but she doesn’t know how to respond. She can tell him time and time again that it’s not his fault, yet she knows him too well to where despite the assurances, he’ll bury it deep within him. Another failure, another way to be better. And yet the fact remains it isn’t his fault. But she offers him more, the breaking and bending, the pieces and dust billowing away in the wind – a hollow shell of a person, fractured and splintered. She doesn’t expect his touch, and for a moment she twitches where his hands reach for her – not a flinch, but a reaction to not being touched in so long. He’s strong, too, as he lifts her from the bridge into his arms, the warmth, her face burying into his chest. She shuts her eyes tight as the rumble of his voice reverberates in the air around them and echoes in the chasm of his chest. She knows he’s right, but it doesn’t make it any easier. Inhaling a shuddering breath, she hugs him back (wondering if maybe in another time, a different life, if her own father would’ve hugged her as such, or simply expected her to be the warrior she was meant to), and then he pulls away – rough, calloused hands on her shoulders as she looks up to him, to meet his so similar icy gaze with her own, except now her own are swimming beneath the weakness of tears. He tells her she’s strong, and she believes him even if she doesn’t feel like it. “I miss them.” She tells him through hazard breaths, a tear sliding down her pale cheek. “I miss my brother. I miss Ru’in. I miss Rixen. I miss Erebos and the Basin.” She names them off like tallies on a wall – lost, dead, almost forgotten, if not for her. She almost misses how he asks her how she can utilize the strength, she doesn’t know. Before it had been a whetstone, to edge and sharpen her blade to fight back against the injustices of the world, of the shit that constantly got thrown at her. Perhaps she needs to become a blade once more. “I can make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.” She replies quietly, hushed, reddened eyes that scan the panes of his face. you are allowed; to watch the sun swallow him whole and burn him up, to stain your fingers to the bone holding him together. to count the constellations in his eyes as they blink out. but you are not allowed to save him...