and let me crawl inside your veins. I'll build a wall, give you a ball and chain.
She isn’t sure if the other woman is lying when she says she doesn’t hate Loess, or any of them. She could have looked into her mind and found the truth, but all she cares is that the woman is following and agreeing to heal Ophanim. For once, the banter and games that Starsin so dearly loved to play to occupy her time had been set aside, in favor for a worry so corporeal that it swallowed any other thought.
Healing Ophanim is not as simple as she had thought it would be, and she doesn’t think she has ever felt this helpless. She stays as close as possible, while still doing her best to stay out of Cress’ way, but every sound that comes from his lips sets her nerves on fire. She flinches when he cries out, but she attempts to suppress the mounting desperation in her throat by pressing her lips into his neck and murmuring quiet reassurances against his skin. She doesn’t allow herself to breathe a sigh of relief until Cress steps back, and declares her work as done, but even then, she cannot shake the tension that lingers in her tight muscles.
Before she can thank her, Malone comes tumbling through the brush, golden and glittering. He goes to his father immediately, and she can feel her chest tightening again when she thinks about how different this could have been. How would she have ever managed to tell him if his father was gone? How could she have ever looked at his perfect face and watched his heart break in his eyes if she had to tell him his father wasn’t coming back?
Willing those thoughts away, she reaches over to run her muzzle along Malone’s neck when he looks from Cress to her, and then she carefully brushes a stray tear from his cheek. “He’ll be okay, love. Cress fixed him and he’s good as new.” Her dark blue eyes find that of the golden mare’s, then, offering her a hesitant, but genuine smile, “I don’t know how I can ever repay you.” She cannot articulate into words how much Ophanim meant to her; she could never possibly explain out loud that without him, she would have been nothing. From such a young age he has been the only constant thing in her life, the only thing that was certain when everything else was not.
With her head lowered to where he still rests on the ground, she buries her muzzle into the tangled strands of his mane, and even though he smells like fire and ash, there is still the scent that is purely him mingling beneath it. Her touch travels upwards just slightly, her lips nestled into a soft spot near his ear as she whispers in a voice so quiet it is nearly inaudible, “I wouldn’t have been able to live without you.” For the first time, the tears that she has been holding back finally fill her eyes, transforming them to a blue that is so dark they almost appear black. They slide down her cheeks and gather in his mane and dampen his skin, but she doesn’t regret at long last confessing out loud something that she had always been afraid to accept and admit.
starsin
it’s not like me to be so mean. you’re all I wanted.
( just let me hold you Like a hostage. )
@[Ophanim] @[Cress]
