She’s known him too long not to see the change in him when she tells him to go, to enjoy himself away from where the dark teeming in her heart can reach him, can ruin this night for him. But she is so sloppy with her efforts, so reckless, because his wings are suddenly mute and still at his sides, that beautiful face a blank like stone. She’s so startled though, maybe so stuck in her own despair, and there isn’t enough time to react before he’s turning away with a hollow farewell and disappearing into the night.
Everything in her is a riot of regret, this so familiar pain and despair that clings to her suddenly amplified by the brusqueness of his departure, by the sudden absence of a boy she’s come to care for so deeply. She hadn’t even considered what weight might be sitting heavily in his chest, how hurt he might be by her quiet attempt to keep him free of her pain.
But she is frozen in place, silent and still as the carved statues in the snowy clearing around her. He had done as she asked of him, had left to find his own fun, and she had no right to call him back. Especially not when the reason for all of this was still hiding unresolved in the shadows. She still wanted to go to her boy, still struggled to find joy in the festivities around her while Merry remained just out of reach.
There was no use calling him back to explain, she would only hurt him worse. She was good at that.
So with one last glance at the twins, a reassurance that at least they had still been left intact despite her poisonous heart, she turned back the way she had come, crossing the short distance to the treeline where her dark and brooding boy had taken to the shadows. Her reflex is to reach out and brush quiet lips in a relieved whisper of a smile across the satin dark of his neck, but she remembers how blankly he had received her touch before, how even Kharon had preferred to step out of reach.
She freezes halfway to him, breathes in sharply with a soft clenching of a worried jaw, and then drops her nose.
“Hi baby.” So soft, still uncertain despite the way she tries so hard not to be. Tries so hard to be whatever it is he needs, whatever will restore this balance of beautiful dark in him. “Wanna tell me what’s going on?” And then she does reach for him, can’t stop herself from closing the distance between them and drawing him into her so gently. “I love you, Merry baby.”
