Standing by the river watching my bridge burn down; Any

[Levi]

He had only been meant to be gone a day, a week at most, but his hunt had dragged on for longer than he would have ever guessed.

Levi had paced from one side of the continent to the other in his search, fury and hopelessness tearing his heart in a different direction. He would not stop until he found her, he told himself as his body collapsed from exhaustion every other night; she would not leave without telling me.

But then a year had passed, maybe more, and finally it was obvious, even to the fool that he was.

She was gone.

She had never truly considered him, his feelings, his needs.
She had burned him, shamed him, drawn words from his mouth he had given to no one else, but worst of all, she had left him. 

It took a year, but finally his foolish heart admitted this, and beaten down, he slept.

He slept, slept, slept, and slept some more.
His body ached from the sleeping, from the days of nothingness and rain on his back. He slept longer and harder than any mortal creature could - a sleep like drowning, violent and sickening, and every time he woke he could taste the bile in his ashen mouth.

So, he returns to his home, because he had nowhere else to be, and he watches. Maybe they have seen him over the last week or so, maybe no one had noticed his dark and burning figure. He did not hide, but he could not approach them.

(It had always been her and him - the rest were them. Maybe he fucked them, maybe he felt love for them, but they were always them, and they were always us.)

With a flick of his tail of flame, he banishes these thoughts of his sister.
Ceara was nothing to him now - that was the way it had to be if he was going to go on.

They, were all he had now - if they would even have him - and something inside of him ached for the camaraderie he had left behind. 

But somewhere inside of him, She laughs because she will always be there, and he will never be more than the burning shadow of a mighty king.

Levi

so scream you, out from behind the bitter ache.