i don't have a choice, but i'd still choose you. || magnus

[Ellyse]

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

    The tension lingering in the air weighs heavily upon her once barren shoulders, a burden nestled deep between the rigid bones, etched into the delicate tendons that stitch her together. Beside her, he is unyielding, hardened as if his entire being were made of stone, jagged along the edges, but smooth and level where erosion had slowly devoured the surface. Darkened with anguish, his eyes no longer seek her own as a deep and powerful storm rages beneath the surface – the once golden flecks seemingly melting into a metallic silver, as alluring and as dangerous as a rumbling hurricane. Her touch is merely a feeble anchor, desperate to steady him, to comfort him – but she is powerless and weak to the tempest stirring within him. When he withdraws from her pleading grasp, she can feel the heavy weight of its chain break away, leaving him to drift.

  Her own eyes, once lit by a fiercely burning fire, barely held an ember now – flickering faintly within the golden rim of her pupils as she watches him bury himself into his own thoughts. The moon bathes his skin in its resplendence, accentuating the darkened blemishes splayed across his golden coat and highlighting the sharp ridges of his bone that lay so squarely under finely carved muscle. A weary sigh emerges from her tired lungs – her heart aches still, but it has grown numb, pounding somewhere in her chest but she is unaware. Doubt weaves its way through her thoughts, and courses through her memories, leaving her sullen and uncertain in its wake.

  At last, her watchful gaze is met with his own once more, but there is nothing but the sound of the wind lacing itself through the dried brush and the distant sound of the rising tide to break the silence. Fatigue has already begun to consume her, just as the vigorous sea ebbs away at the shoreline, wearing away at the particles of sand and leaving hollows in their place – but she is even more drained by the way his eyes bore into hers, a deep secret kept under lock and key. Wordlessly, she pursues – her long, graceful legs carrying her to the edge of the sea, where the restless waves meet with the worn, yet seemingly endless coastline.

  There, she is left alone – seafoam encasing and enveloping her with each rise and fall of the tide, watching as he intrepidly wades through the pounding waves, engulfing himself in the dark mystery of its tireless embrace. There is nothing to hear now but the echo of the ocean pounding away at the ragged, uneven rocks that line the island; a rhythmic sound that both soothes and unnerves her – and soon, she is wading with him, immersing herself into the uneasy water.

  While breathless, her mind is now racing as the distant memory of his words begin to haunt her, and before she can form the words, his voice rises above the riptide, ragged and spent. Her heart aches from the heaviness of his confession, and her eyes close for a moment, etching the words into her memory, all the while trying not to drown in its meaning as a black hole of emotion wells up in the cavern of her breast. Gently, she brushes her lips against his cheek, but soon she withdraws her touch, staring out into the endless abyss before her.

  Death. She had lingered on it many times, admiring the way flesh rots away beneath the prying heat of the sun, fascinated with how the salty brine of the ocean can preserve lean muscle while sloughing off skin – in her youth, she had toyed with the drying bones of the deceased, manipulating them, twisting and changing them. She had never feared death – no, she revered it, even craved it, often wondering how easily boils would fester beneath her skin and how soon her eye sockets would become hollow and bare. Yet now, seeing the brewing storm of trepidation carved into his once stoic features, she cannot keep the rising quell of guilt in her throat.

  ”I cannot fathom how death must feel,” she says, and though she dares not look at him, her lips touch his shoulder again. ”but I can imagine how difficult it must be to leave it behind. You do not belong in the sea, Magnus,” and still, her eyes do not meet his, staring instead at the faint, tired scars that tarnish his skin. ”there will always be a part of it with you. But you are not meant for the sea. You are meant for more. Not all of us are.” She murmurs, knowing that one day, death will claim her too. "Fear is what makes us whole; fear is what drives us. Do not let it get in the way of your purpose."

Ellyse

.

[magnus]

He knew that he has now dragged her out into this ocean of his making, the storm and water turbulent, churning with the memories that now hollow him out. Despite the wisdom writ in her light eyes, despite the passion and the fire, she was still young. She still had an entire lifetime to determine her own path, to make her mark on the world. She should be with someone unburdened—someone who could make her better, who could come to her unencumbered. Instead, she stood with him, with the ocean washing around their chests, with everything that broke him apart on the table between them—the death, the life.

She deserved better.

Magnus struggled to pull from the muck of his despair, from everything that threatened to pull him under so that he could face her, so that he could drink her in. Her features were awash with sympathy and with  a sorrow all their own and his heart shattered in his chest; this is what he had done to her. This is what he had done to them. She had peeled back the corner, but she could not have expected the dam that she would have unleashed by that simple motion. Who could have possibly expected what he was?

He shook his head. “Come here,” he murmured, motioning to his side, to a golden coat littered with scars that each told their own story, the places where the hide was rubbed bare, to the youth that still clung to him although it had no right to it. He pulled her in close to his side, his mouth finding her temple, to her neck, her throat. This time, there was not the burning fire he had shown earlier—just gentle, sweeping motions, as if he was studying the shape of her. He made a small noise in his throat as the taste of her settled onto his tongue, intoxicating in its own right. “I am selfish for wanting you as much as I do.”

Still, he held her close. “I thought that I would never be able to feel this way again, Ellyse.” Because who is allowed to feel this way not one, not twice, but three times in a lifetime? Who is allowed to have this much love in a life so riddled with scars and soaked in sin? “You remind me of the joys of living.”

out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know
I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll

[Ellyse]

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

   The surging current winds its way around her long, lissome legs, drawing her to and fro with a gentle urging that she cannot ignore. Her mind is drawn to the oceanic depths, dwelling on its inky shadows and the pale moonlight that undulates across its broken surface, as a tepid breeze caresses the length of her spine, sending a shiver coursing along the ridges. The silence has already begun to seep into her pores, filling her to the brim with its burdening emptiness, enveloping her in a fleeting moment of solace. The hardened line of her mouth presses against his shoulder again, wanting to feel him move and shift beneath her lips; to taste the musk and brine lingering there.

  Wordlessly, her kisses ghost his skin as her pale lashes shield her hazel eyes from the prying night, absorbing the forsaken moment shared between them as if it might be their last. He is unequivocally torn between the sea and the soil, and she is desperate to anchor him, to will him to stay with her for however long she can. Come here, he murmurs, but she is already pressing the length of her body against him, the pristine perfection of her own gilded skin to his, which lay blemished and scarred across robust muscle and bone.

  Soon, his mouth is touching the flattened line of her temple, traveling the slender length of her neck, exploring the bends and curves of an already familiar path. She cannot quell the sound that rouses from her throat – she does not bother to try; surely the thunderous waves crashing with vigor against the shore will drown it out. Selfish; the word returns – acrid and bitter.

  She, too, is selfish.
  More than he would ever know.

  His confession is heavy, swathing her in the warmth of a thousand suns, urging her settled, rhythmic heartbeat into a pounding frenzy all over again. Her hazel eyes search the once rigid lines of his face, which have since settled into a stark bareness, the darkest yet sweetest layer of him exposed for the taking. Her whiskered lips press there, where the curve of his jaw meets the ridge of his cheekbone, a soft whisper shared.

 ”And you ground me, and make me feel whole.“ Her heart is heavy with the revelation; beneath the façade of indifference, there had been nothing whole about her. There had always been something missing. You deserve better than me, she wants to say, but the words selfishly die on her tongue as her hazel eyes devour the softened features of his face.

   ”Stay with me,” she whispers, with so much more meaning hidden within her words. Her mind envisions the current washing him out to sea, of the salty brine piecing away his flesh and leaving nothing but bone in its wake. ”stay with me.”  

Ellyse

.

[magnus]

Exhaustion claims him, racks through him, and he has to close his eyes against it, has to pull her in closer, clinging to her, holding her against his chest. Her scent is everywhere and yet nowhere, and he hunts it down, lips finding the soft, secret curves of her. The ocean continues to roll in steadily, washing up against their chests and their hips—wrapping around them, whispering sweet things.

They are locked in this embrace, in this moment together, and he cherishes it, leans into it.

Their bodies rock against the gentle pressure of the tide, and he remains silent, all too aware of the raw, bruised pieces of him that lay exposed. But he doesn’t feel anything but relief, a weight lifted, a burden shared with the steely-eyed, steel-spined woman who lies nestled against him. For a moment, he reaches down, inky lips pressing against the tender flesh beneath her ear, but no words come—just silence.

It was enough secrets for one night. It was enough.

Finally, he draws back, pulling her with him as he makes his way toward the shore, to where the land lays beyond. The land that now claims them both, that has wrapped around them with its barbed-wire promises. When the water has dripped from them, leaving them heavy and waterlogged, and when the sand becomes thick beneath their hooves, he reaches over and presses his mouth against her jaw.

“Let’s go home,” he murmurs, because he would stay with her. He would. Because they had two beautiful children, because they had a family they have adopted and promised to protect. Because she has seen the worst of him and not turned her cheek; because despite the fears that clog his throat, despite the words that he is terrified to say again, he has come to love her. “I want to dream against you tonight.”

out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know
I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll