i don't love you; but i always will. || magnus

[Ellyse]

your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine. i don't love you, but i always will.

  Her lungs ache, filled to the very brim with the sulfurous air and yet still feeling entirely empty and devoid of oxygen. Her heart weighs heavily, urging her into the shadows but a voice lingers in the back of her mind, scolding her for shying away from anything at all. Time seemed to be slowly trickling away, each second ticking away lazily with the rolling movement of a rusty old clock hand, and the loneliness had finally begun to set in. Though she craved solitude, the very fiber of her being now felt broken, torn and frayed at the edges from the mere weight of her own thoughts.

    It was her own fault, honestly. She had withdrawn, recoiling into the very recesses of her own mind and within the dark craters of the uncomfortably warm volcanic land - her mind thoughtful; her skin bristling. But now, solace had grown tiring, and a hefty guilt settled into her bones. Magnus. He had never asked anything of her, nothing but her occasional presence beneath a waning full moon, bodies slick with sweat and heat, or nearby during the thick of another meeting. She had little to say in such situations (a shocking thing, really - her opinion had always been hefty and scathing, but not with Magnus). 

   Her mind and heart were fully confident of his abilities, in his vision, and she knew that their children and the many others that followed him would be safe and secure within his care.

   Alas, her anxious mind seeks him out today - the heavy stench of brimstone and sulfur lingering in the stagnant evening air as the sun gently caresses the distant horizon, bathing the wavering stalks of drying greenery in its pale rosy light. Her limbs carry her swiftly through, her heavy plumage tucked tightly along her sides, and it does not take long for her to find the stoic, too-still outline of gold-painted wrought iron muscle. 

   Wordlessly, she emerges from the brush, her footfalls heavy as she has no need to startle or surprise him. Gently, her whiskered muzzle brushes across his hip, though she soon lines the length of her body along with his. A single hazel eye observes his chiseled faced for a long moment, before her gaze drifts away to the falling sun once again.

   Quietly, "I have been absent; and I apologize. I have grown too content in the lull of war. Just know that I am always here, in whatever capacity you may need me, Magnus."

Ellyse

.

@[magnus]