03-22-2021, 05:44 PM
ILLUM
It is because light does not exist without dark, because shadow disappears in the absence of day, because he cannot exist in the absence of her. And there had been a small moment in the vastness of time when their togetherness had been exactly right, when each became a balm the other needed. But she is better at healing, better at finding her feet and finding herself, and he is only the worst parts of himself without any promise of evolution.
He is stagnance, he always has been, and now it is easier than ever to leave himself in the past.
Their past.
He is glad when she allows him this gift of pulling her close, glad that she does not recoil from him even when they both know there will be nothing more than whatever this moment is. Even so, he does not immediately drape his wing around her in case she changes her mind - and when her body brushes the ice along his dark skin and a shiver steals up her spine, he is certain she will. But she stays and so he lets his wing settle over her, shielding her from the rain and the night and the cold, though they both know it is for his sake more than hers.
“But you didn’t.” He says, and he wonders if she will know how hard it was not to remind her that nothing is worse than him. Her dark eyes turn somber, her voice softening, and he reaches out despite his better judgment to trace quiet lips along the soft of her forelock. “If there is anything better than you,” he says, her forelock moving beneath the warmth of his breath, his whispered words which he does not try to conceal the sound of his doubt from, “it is certainly not for me.”
Her silence is what breaks him, and he takes more than he should, touching her neck and her jaw and that soft place just beneath her ear, ignoring that the scent of her is so infused with someone else. It isn’t romantic, and these aren’t kisses, but they are intimate in a way he knows he has to unlearn with her.
She leans into his shoulder to explore the curve of one giant piebald wing, and the motion pulls her from his lips in a natural way. Except this is no kind of distance at all, and the sensation of her lips over the most sensitive parts of his wings is enough to drive him to a groaning madness he only just barely crushes back down. “Angel,” he says, and the words are a sharp kind of warning he’s never used with her, but he is only just barely hanging onto this feeling of sanity and she is going to unleash him if she doesn’t stop that, “please.”
He can’t, not yet.
This love inside his chest is a flame not quite snuffed out and she is the purest kind of oxygen.
He breathes in raggedly, and new lines of tension race like lightning beneath his skin, coiling in his jaw and his shoulders. When she turns to him he does not immediately move to meet her eyes again, choosing to focus instead on the storm now starting to retreat. “Amazing that you’ve all escaped the end of the world unscathed.” He says finally, quietly, fighting for composure another moment before turning those deep golden eyes on her. He is hurt by the way she doesn’t elaborate, and even though he tries to hide the emotion he is sure it still surfaces in odd glimpses. Everything is so close to the surface now.
He breathes again and this time it is more steady, the gold of his eyes fading to something softer, more contained. “In a world of dark? I can do nothing but thrive.” He says, but there is a new weariness in his face because he is a liar. You cannot leave shadow like him in a world of dark and not expect it to disappear entirely, to be consumed. He starts to reach for her again but stills halfway to her brow and pulls back again. “You are the only reason I lived.” He says, and his eyes find somewhere else to look, his voice hard and edged in a strange kind of self loathing. “Do you regret that yet?”
He is stagnance, he always has been, and now it is easier than ever to leave himself in the past.
Their past.
He is glad when she allows him this gift of pulling her close, glad that she does not recoil from him even when they both know there will be nothing more than whatever this moment is. Even so, he does not immediately drape his wing around her in case she changes her mind - and when her body brushes the ice along his dark skin and a shiver steals up her spine, he is certain she will. But she stays and so he lets his wing settle over her, shielding her from the rain and the night and the cold, though they both know it is for his sake more than hers.
“But you didn’t.” He says, and he wonders if she will know how hard it was not to remind her that nothing is worse than him. Her dark eyes turn somber, her voice softening, and he reaches out despite his better judgment to trace quiet lips along the soft of her forelock. “If there is anything better than you,” he says, her forelock moving beneath the warmth of his breath, his whispered words which he does not try to conceal the sound of his doubt from, “it is certainly not for me.”
Her silence is what breaks him, and he takes more than he should, touching her neck and her jaw and that soft place just beneath her ear, ignoring that the scent of her is so infused with someone else. It isn’t romantic, and these aren’t kisses, but they are intimate in a way he knows he has to unlearn with her.
She leans into his shoulder to explore the curve of one giant piebald wing, and the motion pulls her from his lips in a natural way. Except this is no kind of distance at all, and the sensation of her lips over the most sensitive parts of his wings is enough to drive him to a groaning madness he only just barely crushes back down. “Angel,” he says, and the words are a sharp kind of warning he’s never used with her, but he is only just barely hanging onto this feeling of sanity and she is going to unleash him if she doesn’t stop that, “please.”
He can’t, not yet.
This love inside his chest is a flame not quite snuffed out and she is the purest kind of oxygen.
He breathes in raggedly, and new lines of tension race like lightning beneath his skin, coiling in his jaw and his shoulders. When she turns to him he does not immediately move to meet her eyes again, choosing to focus instead on the storm now starting to retreat. “Amazing that you’ve all escaped the end of the world unscathed.” He says finally, quietly, fighting for composure another moment before turning those deep golden eyes on her. He is hurt by the way she doesn’t elaborate, and even though he tries to hide the emotion he is sure it still surfaces in odd glimpses. Everything is so close to the surface now.
He breathes again and this time it is more steady, the gold of his eyes fading to something softer, more contained. “In a world of dark? I can do nothing but thrive.” He says, but there is a new weariness in his face because he is a liar. You cannot leave shadow like him in a world of dark and not expect it to disappear entirely, to be consumed. He starts to reach for her again but stills halfway to her brow and pulls back again. “You are the only reason I lived.” He says, and his eyes find somewhere else to look, his voice hard and edged in a strange kind of self loathing. “Do you regret that yet?”

@[Ryatah]