05-07-2019, 01:01 AM
VulgariS
" i could be ugly in loving you. filthy and soft-mouthed. wolf-tongued and terrible.
i could carry my heart in my mouth like a bird dog to you, so gently i wouldn’t leave a mark. "
i could carry my heart in my mouth like a bird dog to you, so gently i wouldn’t leave a mark. "
When all his memories come crashing down on him, he thought for certain he would drown in the riptide of it. Remembering all the pain and agony he had inflicted shriveled him into a husk of who he once was. He had let it tear through him and stitch him back together all different, all new and old at once. But while the world seemed to spin too fast, too eagerly, his heart remained his compass and it continued to point to his true north – to her. As long as she was near, he knew the fog would clear and everything would settle the way it was meant to. Leliana could cradle his faith and call him back to reason with just a tired smile.
And now she is gone. The compass turns east, then west, then east again in search of its other half tireless and frantic. He’s never been in the sea but he imagines this is what his father felt as he took his last breaths in the waves. All for just the illusion of his love. Vulgaris used to wonder why he would dive headfirst into the cold depths when he knew it couldn’t be her but suddenly he understands more than he would like to.
But his heart does not go soft, does not gleefully surrender itself for just a taste of what used to be, what could have been. It snaps its teeth and slams its fist against the cold stone of her until its knuckles bust open and dribble blood. His heart roars and dares the sky to answer. Vulgaris would pluck the strength from every other magician and chew the cosmos from their marrow if it meant bringing her back to him. Her power is a volcano but his love is a thousand suns, burning for eons with no concern for time or entropy. Even in death he would continue smoldering for her.
He hears her and it twists the knife already buried to the hilt in him. The fields threaten to blight but he steels himself against it, forces himself to keep holding her like it could ever be enough. It was never the quiet of her that drew him in, never the forgiveness or the way she submitted so softly to his will even when it defied her own. It was the way she remained steadfast in her ways and yielded nothing of her core to anyone. She was a revolution of kindness, a tender heart that could sway nations if it only cared to try. Leliana commanded strength without lifting a finger.
But this new woman, she’s heavy-handed and devoid of that war cry of love. She keeps all that summer-love sealed away and forgets the combination to the safe. Still, Vulgaris doesn’t speak out against her. He lets her hoard away her ghost when he wants to be locked away with her.
“I will love that ghost until my bones turn to dust and time forgets our story, and then I’ll love her for a hundred millennia more,” he says in between kisses across her neck. He pauses when she gives her offer but he knows he cannot stay here in a kingdom that has never known him before. (He wants to, he wants to live and die here if it means being close to her.) The thousand suns within him do not flicker, nor do they yield even a fragment of their raging heat. “But I cannot stay here. I’ve done too much wrong in my life and I won’t add to it by turning my back on them.”
He hates the way the words sound in his mouth but they just keep coming now.
“It’s my fault you hate them. They believed in me and you want them to pay for it… so I will pay with them.”
He hesitates before he pulls away from her side but he lets his sad eyes meet hers. An apology could never be enough and he knows it, so he resigns himself to the fate she wants. Vulgaris gives a slow, shuddering sigh as he imagines his sister raising their children somewhere far from here, somewhere they can be happy and free from the awful life he’s built for them.
