10-20-2019, 01:57 PM
She’d meant only to remind him that she is not defenseless, that she will not cave to pressure. He is just as strong, just as resilient, and she expected nothing less than for him to right himself and return to her, to admit that he’d been wrong, that the world was wrong to have ever doubted her. Or even perhaps to right himself and return and tell her she was wrong, which would have been infinitely harder to swallow. But she could have choked it down, however bitter, because she loves him for his own strong mind and the counterbalance he has always provided when she goes too far. Lepis might bemoan his stubbornness to herself, but she is as acutely aware of flaws as her husband (even if she will never admit to them).
Lepis had known it for a lie when she’d said it - that she does not need him - but it had felt so good when she’d said it. It had felt like getting back at Heartfire, like making Wolfbane feel what she’d felt when he’d whispered to her so coldly. It had felt like proving to the whole world that it was wrong about her and it had felt good.
But this?
This is not good.
This is her baby falling and falling and breaking and while she knows in her mind that Wolfbane will be fine, it is not her mind with which she feels. She gasps his name as he falls away, plummets down after him with her wings tight at her sides, but it is not fast enough. She is too late, always too late.
He breaks below her, and she doesn’t feel her own tears. She does not feel the sharp pain of her wings as she halts her sudden descent, as the broken body of her little son becomes something dark and slick and wrong. She doesn’t register the sharp prick of claws along her throat or the weight on her back or even the listing of her flaws.
Not until he mentions her children, not until he says he’ll take them, does she react at all. Even then, it’s just a shuddering gasp to accompany the tears that have not stopped, though she blinks them away as best she can when he finally faces her.
He’s still talking about the North, about power, about things that don’t matter and will never matter if she loses them.
Gale’s loss had been filtered through her own ability, absorbed in small doses over the years, grieved in bits and pieces. It had been enough - could have been enough. It might have continued to be enough had she not seen him bleeding and battered below her, had she not accepted fault moments earlier, had she not been taken to task for failing to carry out a task meant for two entirely by herself.
”Go away, Bane.” She says firmly. Or rather, she means to say firmly. It comes out instead as something else entirely, as something choked and broken and weak. There are surely better emotions in reach, but she cannot find them, not as her eyes remain on the beach a hundred yards below. ”Just...go away.”
@[Wolfbane]
Lepis had known it for a lie when she’d said it - that she does not need him - but it had felt so good when she’d said it. It had felt like getting back at Heartfire, like making Wolfbane feel what she’d felt when he’d whispered to her so coldly. It had felt like proving to the whole world that it was wrong about her and it had felt good.
But this?
This is not good.
This is her baby falling and falling and breaking and while she knows in her mind that Wolfbane will be fine, it is not her mind with which she feels. She gasps his name as he falls away, plummets down after him with her wings tight at her sides, but it is not fast enough. She is too late, always too late.
He breaks below her, and she doesn’t feel her own tears. She does not feel the sharp pain of her wings as she halts her sudden descent, as the broken body of her little son becomes something dark and slick and wrong. She doesn’t register the sharp prick of claws along her throat or the weight on her back or even the listing of her flaws.
Not until he mentions her children, not until he says he’ll take them, does she react at all. Even then, it’s just a shuddering gasp to accompany the tears that have not stopped, though she blinks them away as best she can when he finally faces her.
He’s still talking about the North, about power, about things that don’t matter and will never matter if she loses them.
Gale’s loss had been filtered through her own ability, absorbed in small doses over the years, grieved in bits and pieces. It had been enough - could have been enough. It might have continued to be enough had she not seen him bleeding and battered below her, had she not accepted fault moments earlier, had she not been taken to task for failing to carry out a task meant for two entirely by herself.
”Go away, Bane.” She says firmly. Or rather, she means to say firmly. It comes out instead as something else entirely, as something choked and broken and weak. There are surely better emotions in reach, but she cannot find them, not as her eyes remain on the beach a hundred yards below. ”Just...go away.”
@[Wolfbane]
