The words drain him, the memories shaky as they climb up inside of his vacant mind, taking up residence. Demons he thought long ago conquered return, crawling on their bellies into the dips and whorls and he struggles to not shake—he fights to stand still as they root along, finding the weakest points and pressing there with wild abandon. This was a door he had not wanted to open; this was a hurt he had not wanted to revisit—a fight he had not thought he would have to face once more. Their faces swirl before and through him and the anguish is white hot, the sorrow branding the inside of him.
His tongue presses against the back of his teeth and his jaw clenches, inky lips pressing together into a firm and unwavering line. Those he had not mentioned press protesting palms against him, grabbing his heart with greedy hands, claws digging into him. Librette, with her frank and unyielding fierce gaze. Raaquel with blood on her lips. Ledger with fear on his face and a monster in his belly. Fiero with a misery he could not outrun. And the final one—the sight of their perfect little daughter curled up on the ground and lifeless. The sight of Ellyse hitting her knees, the keening wail that pierced his mind.
For a moment, he doesn’t respond to her touch, to the words that push against him. He stiffens and closes his eyes, brow furrowing in thought as he fights for control, to grab ahold of something. He peels himself away from her with a shake of his head and moves to the edge of a small ledge, the beach splaying out beneath him. His gold-flecked eyes are pained as he watches the lazy waves wash up on the shore, as the stars in all of their splendor reflect in teal water. With the tide comes an ocean breeze and he sighs as it lifts up his mane from his sweat-slicked skin. He twists his head back to where he had left Ellyse.
He finds her gaze but still can’t bring himself to say anything so instead he just jerks his chin and then makes his path down toward the beach, his self-assured step taking him out into the water. He does not stop until the brine of it reaches his chest, until he can feel the gentle tide pushing against him, until he can feel that pull from within—that dark and dangerous call for him to return back to its endless depths.
“It scares me how much this feels like home sometimes,” he confesses, although he still doesn’t look to her. “Immortality now runs through my veins,” a truth he had not yet told anyone, “but the place that sometimes calls to me the most, that pulls at me the hardest, is right here.”
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
![[Image: gqYjsHr.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/KjqNDKxc/gqYjsHr.png)