05-18-2021, 09:46 PM
kensley
i swore the days were over of courting empty dreams
It is not a gift, his ability to hear them without their knowing it.
It is not a gift in the way it makes his chest burn with shame, his throat ache with guilt. Their thoughts are not his to know, these private things meant only for them.
(And these are especially painful, aren’t they? To hear her greet him like an old friend, knowing that she does not know who he is. But can he blame her? He had been someone entirely different the first time their paths had crossed and the last time, too.)
His smile softens. Not with disappointment, no, but with a kind of understanding as he studies her. His old friend. Perhaps the only one he’d thought he had left. And he wonders what it was that took the memory from her. Was it magic or was it simply time?
“You don’t remember me,” he says but there is no accusation in his tone. He says it kindly, head tilted as he studies her. So much has changed since the last time he saw her, he thinks, and he’d been eager to share these things with her when he’d first laid eyes on her. (And maybe there is some inkling of disappointment burrowed in the valleys between his ribs as he realizes that he will not be able to have this conversation with his friend, but this is not her fault and he does not blame her.)
“We were friends once, you and I,” he explains, smiling softly still. “You helped me when I wasn’t willing to help myself.” He swallows, draws in a long breath and then turns his attention to the light pooling around them. He nods, distracted.
“It is,” he agrees. He thinks of Anaxarete, their son. “I was never very fond of the dark.”
It is not a gift in the way it makes his chest burn with shame, his throat ache with guilt. Their thoughts are not his to know, these private things meant only for them.
(And these are especially painful, aren’t they? To hear her greet him like an old friend, knowing that she does not know who he is. But can he blame her? He had been someone entirely different the first time their paths had crossed and the last time, too.)
His smile softens. Not with disappointment, no, but with a kind of understanding as he studies her. His old friend. Perhaps the only one he’d thought he had left. And he wonders what it was that took the memory from her. Was it magic or was it simply time?
“You don’t remember me,” he says but there is no accusation in his tone. He says it kindly, head tilted as he studies her. So much has changed since the last time he saw her, he thinks, and he’d been eager to share these things with her when he’d first laid eyes on her. (And maybe there is some inkling of disappointment burrowed in the valleys between his ribs as he realizes that he will not be able to have this conversation with his friend, but this is not her fault and he does not blame her.)
“We were friends once, you and I,” he explains, smiling softly still. “You helped me when I wasn’t willing to help myself.” He swallows, draws in a long breath and then turns his attention to the light pooling around them. He nods, distracted.
“It is,” he agrees. He thinks of Anaxarete, their son. “I was never very fond of the dark.”
i worshipped at the altar of losing everything
@[Agetta]