You're so cold
but you feel alive
"You're right. It really doesn't matter."
For the first time there's a crack in her voice as she answered. Her jaw clenched as she forced down a steadying breath - don't think, don't feel, don't show - and she did as she was told. Found fletching under her fingers, pulled free wood and metal from a sheath of leather to hold it against the limb, ply the string, breathe and aim and loose.
The arrow thunked into place a hands breath beside the first, deeper into the chest now. A pierced lung, possibly a severed artery. She was bleeding on the inside too, because it was all excuses and no explanations in the world could baindaid this wound. Tried, so hard, to cover it up with the frost, with the cold, the storm and the LongNight dark and just. not. care.
But it didn't work that well, because Maea was good at silence and play pretend. Not bandaging wounds. Not offering comfort, or support. Did he expect her to save him? She couldn't even save herself.
"You put the ring back on."
And there it was. The gaping hole in her trust, laid bare for him to see. In all its mangled glory, ragged and oozing. Maea had offered him to come closer if he let go of his misery, cut him free and tried to change things for the better. If he took off the ring. She thought she shouldn't have to say that the thing would have to stay off.
She thought that part was obvious.
For the first time there's a crack in her voice as she answered. Her jaw clenched as she forced down a steadying breath - don't think, don't feel, don't show - and she did as she was told. Found fletching under her fingers, pulled free wood and metal from a sheath of leather to hold it against the limb, ply the string, breathe and aim and loose.
The arrow thunked into place a hands breath beside the first, deeper into the chest now. A pierced lung, possibly a severed artery. She was bleeding on the inside too, because it was all excuses and no explanations in the world could baindaid this wound. Tried, so hard, to cover it up with the frost, with the cold, the storm and the LongNight dark and just. not. care.
But it didn't work that well, because Maea was good at silence and play pretend. Not bandaging wounds. Not offering comfort, or support. Did he expect her to save him? She couldn't even save herself.
"You put the ring back on."
And there it was. The gaping hole in her trust, laid bare for him to see. In all its mangled glory, ragged and oozing. Maea had offered him to come closer if he let go of his misery, cut him free and tried to change things for the better. If he took off the ring. She thought she shouldn't have to say that the thing would have to stay off.
She thought that part was obvious.
lay your hands on me
one last time
MAEA
