07-01-2021, 04:24 PM
este
If she knew he felt that he needed forgiveness, she would have given it to him freely.
But Este, whose life was mostly fever-dreams and death-like sleeps, did not know enough to see why he would ever think he needed to ask such a thing from her.
She had missed him when he was gone, but she had no sense of how often he was gone. She knew her mother was there more often than he was, but that made sense, didn’t it? It made sense for a mother to hover worriedly over her ailing child, but it did not seem that her twin, just a child himself, should be subjected to the same thing. He deserved to have a life and a childhood—only, she is learning it was not all the things she romanticized it would be. While she was sleeping and dreaming and dying, Sela was dealing with his own demons and nightmares, and if anything, she feels guilty for not being there for him.
It’s why when he finds her it is a cautious kind of smile that she offers him, even though her body seems to visibly glow with a warm excitement at the sight of him. She could harbor light, she was learning—could tuck sunshine away and call upon it whenever she wanted, but it had a way of radiating from her, uncontrolled as if it was just as excited to see her twin as she was. As if she could wrap him in light and warm the ice from his bones, to show him all the things she does not know how to tell him.
When he lowers himself into the grass near her she shifts closer, until she is curled alongside him, her soft, dappled body just behind his. She does not mind the ice of his skin, because she has learned to associate the cold with the comfort of him being near, and instead she presses into it gladly, her cheek resting against his back. “No,” she says softly, “I don’t think anything is eternal, though. Not even happiness.” She does not know which she would prefer. She thinks suffering might be the easiest, or maybe that happiness is just a version of suffering. It was always going to end because everything was meant to end; she isn’t sure if you could truly enjoy such a thing, knowing it isn’t going to last.
But Este, whose life was mostly fever-dreams and death-like sleeps, did not know enough to see why he would ever think he needed to ask such a thing from her.
She had missed him when he was gone, but she had no sense of how often he was gone. She knew her mother was there more often than he was, but that made sense, didn’t it? It made sense for a mother to hover worriedly over her ailing child, but it did not seem that her twin, just a child himself, should be subjected to the same thing. He deserved to have a life and a childhood—only, she is learning it was not all the things she romanticized it would be. While she was sleeping and dreaming and dying, Sela was dealing with his own demons and nightmares, and if anything, she feels guilty for not being there for him.
It’s why when he finds her it is a cautious kind of smile that she offers him, even though her body seems to visibly glow with a warm excitement at the sight of him. She could harbor light, she was learning—could tuck sunshine away and call upon it whenever she wanted, but it had a way of radiating from her, uncontrolled as if it was just as excited to see her twin as she was. As if she could wrap him in light and warm the ice from his bones, to show him all the things she does not know how to tell him.
When he lowers himself into the grass near her she shifts closer, until she is curled alongside him, her soft, dappled body just behind his. She does not mind the ice of his skin, because she has learned to associate the cold with the comfort of him being near, and instead she presses into it gladly, her cheek resting against his back. “No,” she says softly, “I don’t think anything is eternal, though. Not even happiness.” She does not know which she would prefer. She thinks suffering might be the easiest, or maybe that happiness is just a version of suffering. It was always going to end because everything was meant to end; she isn’t sure if you could truly enjoy such a thing, knowing it isn’t going to last.
BUT WHO COULD STAY?
@Selaphiel