Evie
The strength of his hand around hers should settle her heart and her nerves. In its grasp she should note the callouses from years of work, the scars from battles won, and take heart in all he has proven to overcome. Instead, all she feels is the way his fingers fit with hers perfectly, a man instead of a weapon, and she isn’t sure she can let go when the time comes.
Her face contorts with pain as he gently thumbs away her tears, leaning her cheek selfishly into his touch. He should not have to comfort her, and she loathes herself for not being strong enough to have prevented it from happening. “Then why must you take it upon yourself? Haven’t you given enough? Why can’t you stay and - and be safe?” Or at least just marginally safer than the Draig?
His comfort is not hollow for how it encompasses her, but it is hollow at its heart. A promise that cannot truly be kept. Still she clings to it, because what else will there be to cling to once he is gone? She spends a moment, eyes closed, trying to slow the tears he gently brushed away. Until she reluctantly retrieves her hand - and the throwing daggers he gave her so many years ago, which have never left her waist - and shears a lock of hair the length of her palm with the blade. “My magic and salves can’t work on you even if I sent them with you,” her voice wobbles, but she tries very hard to steady it as she holds her own vibrant lock between their two bodies like a concealed gift. “But - but take me anyway? So I can be there with you?” He can use his magic to do what he likes with it, but she can’t bear to imagine not being with him even if just in spirit. Worse, Evie can’t imagine him dying alone on the Draig without a piece of her to carry with him into the beyond, to hold and remember her until the time she could reunite with him once more.
Her face contorts with pain as he gently thumbs away her tears, leaning her cheek selfishly into his touch. He should not have to comfort her, and she loathes herself for not being strong enough to have prevented it from happening. “Then why must you take it upon yourself? Haven’t you given enough? Why can’t you stay and - and be safe?” Or at least just marginally safer than the Draig?
His comfort is not hollow for how it encompasses her, but it is hollow at its heart. A promise that cannot truly be kept. Still she clings to it, because what else will there be to cling to once he is gone? She spends a moment, eyes closed, trying to slow the tears he gently brushed away. Until she reluctantly retrieves her hand - and the throwing daggers he gave her so many years ago, which have never left her waist - and shears a lock of hair the length of her palm with the blade. “My magic and salves can’t work on you even if I sent them with you,” her voice wobbles, but she tries very hard to steady it as she holds her own vibrant lock between their two bodies like a concealed gift. “But - but take me anyway? So I can be there with you?” He can use his magic to do what he likes with it, but she can’t bear to imagine not being with him even if just in spirit. Worse, Evie can’t imagine him dying alone on the Draig without a piece of her to carry with him into the beyond, to hold and remember her until the time she could reunite with him once more.
a golden cage, for all its worth and beauty
is still just a cage
is still just a cage
