(SE) need some room to breathe

you promised me sunshine, why's it gloomy? we'll wait 'til the night to catch the moonbeam

It is a crack, a little tear that Sunjata tries his best not to poke and prod at despite how much he wants to delve in deeper and see just what lies beneath. He has an inkling, if nothing else, but he imagines it’ll hurt more to dive in than it does to settle with himself and his own thoughts, his own deep and dark depressing void from Haai’s departure.

So he focuses on teaching her, on giving her the demonstration and then settling in back to watch from this distance to see how well she handles it. She does well and it’s with a rush of content that Sunjata offers his approval through the bond. Very good, Ru. He murmurs, speeding himself up to meet her on the side, their wingtips close enough to barely touch if they tried hard enough to, but Sunjata staves himself off.

What was next, though? There’s a rumble of a chuckle through the bond as he zips forward, ahead of her, slipping through the wind currents like they’re second nature. Well, then it’s just practicing it. Either that or the landing. Up to you. He pauses to turn back, wings keeping up with him as he glances at her.

SUNJATA

but now it is a competition of whichever is heavier:
my will, or the pull of gravity into the grave

His closeness is a comfort and yet it burns, feathers rippling as if following the way her skin tightens at his nearness. It hurts. She wants, and cannot reach. She hates to want at all. It’s a maelstrom of emotions that only focusing on flying helps with, and even then she can’t help the brief surge beneath the cracking ice as he calls her by her nickname, as he praises her anew. But he holds back, and so she must do the same. Refusing to cross lines she already burned up with a touch of her fingers. Allowing him to take control of his own boundaries, and refusing to acknowledge her own emotions.

Ru watches as he darts forward, a natural despite how out of place his figure looks in the winter fields surrounding them. Landing seems like a better challenge than practice. A more definitive end. A reason not to linger, to talk, to potentially ruin things the longer they spend in each other’s presence. Landing has been the easiest so far. It’s like falling, but with style. And so far she has done a lot of falling in this form. This time she doesn’t wait for an example. Being reckless and headstrong is a better solution to her pain, and she lets her wings curl around her body, pivoting forward and diving through the air. Plummeting to the earth in a slick stream of pale Golden feathers.

For a moment, she lingers too long. Doesn’t open her wings. Considers the easy, abrupt nature of ending that awaits her. Mort’s arms, and no more pain. Then she wrenches her wings up against the wind, primaries spread wide to catch and drag, and she lands in a flurry of snow, talons striking earth as surely as they would prey. Hopping about, she shakes out her wings and pretends that moment of hesitation never happened. Shoving it all back and away. Again and again. Back into the box where it belongs.

Pretty great if I do say so myself, she preens, hoping to distract from any glimpse of awareness he may have caught as she kicks at snow with her nimble claws.

right by the entrance you broke, finally reality's taking its hold

Oh, you have the style down? He teases lightly. I suppose if you consider style a heap of feathers, at least in my case when I was learning, then sure. There’s another rumble of amusement that’s shot across the bond before she starts to dive and he keeps his eyes on her – wings tucking in against his bodice as he slips down and down and down.

Worry sparks for a second, a sharp split second as she closes in and hasn’t pulled up – he can’t stop himself when it shoots across the bond like a bullet, only to be snatched up and hidden behind his mask again. He doesn’t land as she does, not in his bird form at least. He slips closer and closer, banking up and drifting heading toward her but far enough away that when he shifts back his feet touch the ground with a splash of snow covering her.

She still has his jacket and Sunjata immediately shoves his hands into his pockets, casting a steel glance down to her avian form with a small smile. “Like a natural.” He hums.

you're not who you were, but you can't let it go
you're not where you're from, but you're always alone

SUNJATA

Some people crash two or three times and then learn from their mistakes
We are the ones who don't slow down at all

His worry is like a blade between the ribs, and yet she doesn't let herself react to it. He cares, she knows he does, but it doesn't change anything. It never will. There is a certain peace to the numb acceptance that washes over her as she watches him descend to shift mid-air and land with catlike grace. It's as close to closure as she's likely to get. If it can ever be considered closure when she still loves him and Nate as much as she did the night before everything went to hell.

There is only the barest glimpse of that deep, bottomless well of emotion before she too is finding limbs and legs anew. Effectively silencing the bond entirely, unable to tap into it as a human for now. Expression calm and betraying nothing, far more controlled than her fledgling grasp over the Attuned bond. A quirk of a smile pulls at one corner of her mouth at his compliment. "It pays to have a good teacher." Shrugging out of his jacket, she extends it across the distance, and makes no move to close it. Ru's not sure either of them is strong enough for that yet. "I owe you. Thank you." Debt had never been a facet of their relationship before, but Hotaru isn't naive enough to believe that will remain. Sunjata is too good a man, she's sure he will wave it away, but Hotaru's pride will not allow her to keep mum in the first place.

And there's nobody there to catch us when we fall

HOTARU

right by the entrance you broke, finally reality's taking its hold

“I suppose it does.” He acknowledges, hands finding his pockets if only so he doesn’t reach out to touch her. She shifts back and his gaze focuses on the way the bond starts to shut off, the way it’s purely silent on her end once again and Sunjata swallows hard in a way he hopes he can hide (knowing he’ll fail for her eyes, because he’s never been great at it when it came to her). He works his jaw for a split second, the muscles tugging at the scar as she offers out the jacket.

And she’s right. He does plan on refusing it. As far as he’s concerned, it’s hers now. A parting offer, perhaps? A good graces? An I’m sorry in ways that he’d never been able to articulate. Perhaps, perhaps on that fateful night if she had been Attuned she would’ve understood deep down his regret and his fear and the hidden steel of a backbone when it came to trying to save one person they both loved dearly.

Nate was a light in the darkness, for both of them.

He steps forward, partially against his better judgement because gods its going to hurt just as it did the first time, though this time feels worse. It feels more bittersweet. It feels more like a burn than a drowning.

He closes the distance between them, taking the jacket from her hands, opening it up and closing the space between them even more – a shadowed steel crossing his gaze. He can’t forgive her, but he can give her this at the very least. He slips the jacket around her shoulders, the warmth of his hands bleeding through the fabric as his hands rest there, peering down at her. And he lingers, because he’s not sure what to say.

After a few moments he shakes himself out of it, his hands withdrawing from her but not before his thumb brushes by her jawline in a whisper of a touch. “Keep it.”

you're not who you were, but you can't let it go
you're not where you're from, but you're always alone

SUNJATA

Some people crash two or three times and then learn from their mistakes
We are the ones who don't slow down at all

It's true, he can't hope to hide it from her, not when she can scarcely blink whenever he's around these days. She doesn't let herself read too much into it. It's easier to be lost to what-ifs and maybes without the bond between them, but Hotaru is not in the habit of willfully deluding herself. Even if her conclusions were correct, it would only twist the knife they left in each other's backs.

Her breath catches and holds in her throat as he approaches, the crunch of snow beneath his boots deafening as her eyes lift to hold his with each inch that disappears between them. She wants to fist her hands in his shirt, bury her face in the crook of his neck, feel his heartbeat against her cheek. She wants to kiss him, to chase the lingering taste of Nate off his tongue, to pretend she's home in Halo where they've joined her and everything in the world is right and perfect and beautiful. She wants to pretend this is a harrowing novel with a badly drawn cover, and that the snow in her hair is rain, and this is the moment where love conquers all and bridges are repaired.

Instead, she numbly releases her cramped fingers as he takes his own jacket from her hand, and the other lies limp against her side. She won't hurt him. Not again. And all of those dreams and fantasies and delusions cater to her own happiness - ignoring entirely the fact that if she were to reach for him now, it would only make things worse for him. So Hotaru lets him wrap her back into the coat, her hair trapped down against her back, no gentle calloused hand to set it to rights as it once might have. Throughout it all she never dares to blink. The cold is the reason for the sting in her eyes, and the wobble in her lip is merely shivers.

As his thumb trails across her jaw, her eyes clench closed briefly, a reaction she has to afford herself lest the strength it takes to keep her heart from shattering reveal even more. Brief as the touch may be she still turns into it helplessly, jaw tilting forward as if to chase the warmth of his hand even as her feet remain firmly rooted to the ground. It takes a few extra blinks to dissuade the wetness in her eyes before she can meet his gaze again. "Thank you," she whispers, and returns his touch with one of her own - the gentle caress of fingers against the back of his hand. Hotaru isn't sure she should be thanking him at all. For him this is the closing of a door, turning away to open another where hearth and home await. For Hotaru it is the hollow sound of an empty room with no way out but that solitary door now locked and forgotten. Give Nate my love, she yearns to say. But he already has it, whether he knows it or not, and she won't burden either of them with the knowledge.

Tilting her chin towards the flowers in his pocket, she manages a weak smile in hopes of distracting from the gleam of her eyes. "Better get those into some water soon," hoarse notes suggest, and she steps back. Breaking the illusion of closeness that she had shamefully indulged in. Inside the jacket sleeves, her fingers clench tight upon the material, the only layer preventing her nails from sinking into her palms. "Goodbye, Jata." This, Ru can allow herself. A nickname she has no right to, but one to mimic the same usage of her own in his mouth. It's a better goodbye this time, and yet it feels worse in every way.

And there's nobody there to catch us when we fall

HOTARU

right by the entrance you broke, finally reality's taking its hold

If only there weren’t the crosshairs of everything lain between them, that this wouldn’t have to be goodbye. But they both know that it is, unless it’s in passing, unless fate has a way of placing them in a right place right time scenario again. But it’s one that doesn’t have him chasing after her, not like he had before. Nor does it have her, chasing after him, not like she had before. No, for now? It’s exactly this, a shaky, too much and yet too little goodbye that leaves Sunjata shadowed more than he lets on.

It’s visible in the way he clenches his jaw, the way his blink is stuttered when her hand brushes along the back of his knuckles, in the ghostly way that if only things hadn’t gotten so out of hand. A memory. His cheeks flush with the way she leans into his touch ever so gently, catlike in its way of seeking out attention on her terms, and while he knows her, he knows he also doesn’t know her. He doesn’t know if it’s a ruse to tug at his heartstrings, another way for her to get back at him in a more mental capacity. He hopes it isn’t, hopes that what’s in the past stays in the past, and that they might be able to move on from the tragedy brought upon them.

Sunjata, however, was always the root of that. He can’t even say he’s surprised, because he knows. They both know. And it is what it is, when the sting of tears hits her eyes and he could assume that it’s only the cold (he knows better), and the way he swallows hard through a flushed face that’s certainly because his body hasn’t acclimated to snow just yet and not because of any other reason.

He takes a deep breath, chest expanding and shoulders loosening a fraction from their statuesque tightness that has him nodding to her thank you – unsure if it’s for the jacket that’ll still smell like him when she brings it home, that’ll smell like sandalwood and tobacco, the edge of vanilla chased underneath it muted by the bark of what smells like the burnt wood of a campfire.

Perhaps it’d be soothing. Perhaps it wouldn’t be.

“I intend to.” He reassures her, the Flood slipping into that tinge of Korofi nobility in a slang to his tone and the words he picks (another mask that she’s aware of that he can’t hide from her, but it’s all he has now). And he takes another deep, slow breath, watching as she steps away and the connection there is severed and he finally has a chance to blink and reorient himself.

He watches her disappear a few moments longer before he turns away, ensuring the flowers are tucked in, before the Flood shifts to his dragon shift and takes to the sky – heading home as a black speck among a white sky.

- FIN <333

you're not who you were, but you can't let it go
you're not where you're from, but you're always alone

SUNJATA