too much living and I’m dying again

SUNJATA

the flood

i'm nothing more than a page unwritten
on the pavement, blowing in the wind

It’s not like he blames her for the oversight. It’s a common one, if it weren’t so close to Sunjata’s mind and chest. He’d love to be back in Torchline, love to have some semblance of similarities even if it hurt, but perhaps that was his own little way of self torturing himself. Alongside the sun, the painful memories, the beach they’d gotten married on, the hill their house still sat on, vacant.

The house that had burned, left in pieces.

He asks if she’d stay in Halo, half tempted to ask her to join him in the refuge if she needed it, but she continues even as their gazes remain on the horizon, broken and fragile and uncertain what the future held. Her voice trails off and he knows what she means, and this time he can’t stop himself from reaching out to rest his fingertips gently on her forearm, a soft little touch to say that even if he was only still standing here out of pure obligation, that at least she wasn’t standing there alone.

“Of course.” He offers quietly, pulling his gaze away from the stormy waters to glance back at her, to blink away his own tears swimming in a sea of silver. “You’d always be welcome. Just… Remember that, okay?” It drops into a whisper before his own voice has a chance to crack.

you win a lot, and you lose
just a little bit more than you gained in the end

Hotaru

I'm made of dead man's money, you can see it in my smile

Obligation. She has no way of knowing aside from the mangled remnants of an Attuned bond that lay between them, poorly muffled as it is on both sides, but the sentiment is there all the same. She hasn't been a player on his chessboard in a very long time. Aside from fate drawing her here in the wake of all this loss, what right does she really have to take his time any longer?

She stares at his fingers resting gently on her forearm, and selfishly takes what comfort she can from it, hollow as it feels. Her opposite hand comes to brush her own fingertips against his, quietly observing the differences in their skin tone, the various scars he has that she does not even after the life she has lived. A fleeting touch that feels befitting their relationship; meaningful, but brief.

Lifting her eyes slowly once she registers belatedly that he is looking at her, Ru tries for a vague smile that is not nearly as reassuring as it could have been. The tears there do move her, somewhere beneath the numbness. "I'll remember," she whispers, and dares to slide her fingers over his just enough to curl around them in a small squeeze. It's an implied promise that this won't be her last day, even if it's a small one. The notion of a future that she will be alive to see. Though she has no say over his presence in Halo, she hopes he knows he can call on her any time in turn. “Thank you, Jata.” Because he didn’t need to comfort her in his own grief, but he did anyway. And maybe that made all the difference, because now she feels more resigned to sitting here on the sand than venturing into the cold depths before them.

- Fin!

Watch the fire rise, burning through my paper skin