ILLUM
Stop.
It is just a word, just one single word, but he bends to it like shadow around the edges of light. It doesn’t matter that he can still feel the tremble of that porcelain pale skin beneath his cool touch, or that the sound of that small gasp catching in her throat still echoes in his ears. She had said his name, and it had not been in a way filled with affection or willingness. It had been in a way that made him wonder if she finally understood the depths of his wretchedness, if she finally understood that she should fear the dark that lived inside his chest. That she should fear him.
Stop.
She moves away from him and he is little more than a stone-faced statue, void of any hint of the pain and loss that burns through him with the intensity of a sun gone supernova. He is time come undone, he is erosion in fast forward, there will be nothing left of him when he leaves her this time and he finds that it is hard to care. The shadows fall away from her wings, dropping like shadow-silk carved away in great swaths. It pools in the darkness at their feet and is gone in an instant.
When she speaks again he is nothing but the living night. Blackness creeps over his skin until it swallows him in shadow, making all his edges blurry and indistinct like every part of who he is might disappear into the surrounding dark. He does not notice the changes though,not even the way the hair of his mane moves against his neck like he is underwater, like it is black fog against his skin. He does not feel changed. He does not feel anything at all except this vast hollowness that settles inside his chest as a ring of silver creeps like ice just around the edge of his pupils. He doesn’t blink when she looks him in the eyes, doesn’t beg when she wounds him with truths he had all but demanded from her.
He is empty.
He is vast.
He is the cold dark of the space between stars, the night that brings you deepest fears to watch you while you sleep.
“You will do nothing for me.” He says, and his strange eyes drift to the way her delicate body trembles at the effort of - of what? Of being this near to him? Had he frightened her with his closeness, with the way he would have taken anything she was willing to give him. Stop. He tries to recall if there had been fear in her voice, if those dark, beautiful eyes had watched him with a new kind of wariness after that gritted request. “You will forget that you ever knew me. Return me to the dark, Ryatah. It is the only place I belong.” He doesn’t call her Angel this time, but she is, she always is and it burns something inside his chest to call her anything else.
He takes a step back, and then another, and he can feel that darkness rise inside him with a fury that nearly blinds him. It begs him to erase the distance between them, to press his mouth to her neck and taste with wandering lips the way her skin trembles beneath them. Would she ask him to stop a second time? He blinks, and something savage ruins the beautiful dark of his face and he turns from her entirely, fighting for a control he no longer has.
Except -
He freezes, his face turning back to watch her with all of that agony slipping through the cracks of his careful stone mask. “I love you.” It is not a confession, not a secret, not a plea to make her change what it is inside her heart. He is glad she has the sense to love someone better than him. “If you ever need me,” a pause, because the wording feels like a kind of goodbye he hadn’t meant it to, and yet maybe it has to be, maybe it is the only good part of him left to give her, “there is a feather beneath your right wing where it meets your shoulder. Pull it free and I will find you, no matter what.” He carves it from his own dark - not this false night that surrounds them, but from the shadows that live inside his soul. It is the same size as the feathers that surround it, same shape, identical in everything but color. He tucks it in with his magics where it will remain hidden until she needs it, if she ever needs it. “And if it is not something you want to keep, let the light in you burn it away. It is only shadow.” Like him.
It is just a word, just one single word, but he bends to it like shadow around the edges of light. It doesn’t matter that he can still feel the tremble of that porcelain pale skin beneath his cool touch, or that the sound of that small gasp catching in her throat still echoes in his ears. She had said his name, and it had not been in a way filled with affection or willingness. It had been in a way that made him wonder if she finally understood the depths of his wretchedness, if she finally understood that she should fear the dark that lived inside his chest. That she should fear him.
Stop.
She moves away from him and he is little more than a stone-faced statue, void of any hint of the pain and loss that burns through him with the intensity of a sun gone supernova. He is time come undone, he is erosion in fast forward, there will be nothing left of him when he leaves her this time and he finds that it is hard to care. The shadows fall away from her wings, dropping like shadow-silk carved away in great swaths. It pools in the darkness at their feet and is gone in an instant.
When she speaks again he is nothing but the living night. Blackness creeps over his skin until it swallows him in shadow, making all his edges blurry and indistinct like every part of who he is might disappear into the surrounding dark. He does not notice the changes though,not even the way the hair of his mane moves against his neck like he is underwater, like it is black fog against his skin. He does not feel changed. He does not feel anything at all except this vast hollowness that settles inside his chest as a ring of silver creeps like ice just around the edge of his pupils. He doesn’t blink when she looks him in the eyes, doesn’t beg when she wounds him with truths he had all but demanded from her.
He is empty.
He is vast.
He is the cold dark of the space between stars, the night that brings you deepest fears to watch you while you sleep.
“You will do nothing for me.” He says, and his strange eyes drift to the way her delicate body trembles at the effort of - of what? Of being this near to him? Had he frightened her with his closeness, with the way he would have taken anything she was willing to give him. Stop. He tries to recall if there had been fear in her voice, if those dark, beautiful eyes had watched him with a new kind of wariness after that gritted request. “You will forget that you ever knew me. Return me to the dark, Ryatah. It is the only place I belong.” He doesn’t call her Angel this time, but she is, she always is and it burns something inside his chest to call her anything else.
He takes a step back, and then another, and he can feel that darkness rise inside him with a fury that nearly blinds him. It begs him to erase the distance between them, to press his mouth to her neck and taste with wandering lips the way her skin trembles beneath them. Would she ask him to stop a second time? He blinks, and something savage ruins the beautiful dark of his face and he turns from her entirely, fighting for a control he no longer has.
Except -
He freezes, his face turning back to watch her with all of that agony slipping through the cracks of his careful stone mask. “I love you.” It is not a confession, not a secret, not a plea to make her change what it is inside her heart. He is glad she has the sense to love someone better than him. “If you ever need me,” a pause, because the wording feels like a kind of goodbye he hadn’t meant it to, and yet maybe it has to be, maybe it is the only good part of him left to give her, “there is a feather beneath your right wing where it meets your shoulder. Pull it free and I will find you, no matter what.” He carves it from his own dark - not this false night that surrounds them, but from the shadows that live inside his soul. It is the same size as the feathers that surround it, same shape, identical in everything but color. He tucks it in with his magics where it will remain hidden until she needs it, if she ever needs it. “And if it is not something you want to keep, let the light in you burn it away. It is only shadow.” Like him.
