let my shadows prove the sunshine
Svedka has always been gentle.
Gentle in a way that was unheard of in the chaotic world around them. Life had always been kind to him and he had never known a stranger; his heart is too large and because of it he could not bear to give it away to only one. Even after his venture through the afterlife and back again, he can already feel his heart pulsing and aching, begging for closeness and intimacy. He had never had to notice it before but he knows for certain that it is the only way he will truly heal.
For a moment - brief and fleeting - he is thankful she cannot see the terrible wounds on his shoulders. Deep claw marks, vivid and jagged with his skin’s attempt to heal, red and swollen and ugly against the pale gold and white of his overo skin. Svedka’s cerulean eyes are gentle as she comes to stand beside him, feeling imperfect and small as he basks in the golden ambiance that radiates from her very being. Then, it seems like she hesitates and Svedka can feel his stomach clench and go cold with worry.
I don’t want to be alone.
A thought that had never been spoken aloud (and there is no exception tonight), but the uncertainty is a dark shadow across his otherwise pale face. His whole demeanor relaxes when she says his name. It almost sounds final in the way that it graces her lips; as if she had decided in that breath that she would allow him to continue to soak up her soft light. He cannot help the shuddering sigh of contentment that leaves him so breathlessly as she does not hesitate to fill up space beside him (it’s as if she knew that it was not the only company that he needed tonight, but something more). She is all light and ethereal, a figment of his imagination, he is sure.
“Ryatah,” he repeats her name like she had his and his voice is careful with it. Gentle, as if it is precious like glass, nearly a whisper on his pale lips. He closes his eyes - those white lashes falling gently against the brightness of blue - as she tenderly touches his neck, finding comfort in the way that she somehow eases all the grief and confusion inside of him. His breathing, soft and delicate, comes to still as the warmth of her touch finds the burning ache of his wounds, still hot and infected across his tattered skin.
You’re hurt.
Svedka’s eyes open lazily, maybe about to protest her observation. I’m not, he would say with a charming grin and maybe even a proud toss of his head, but when his crystal blue eyes fixate on the golden halo above her ears and then gently fall to the dull gray of her eyes, he is unable to lie. There is a subtle shake of his head and a clear tension that falls across his body.
“I died,” he tells her blatantly, his voice unwavering. His brow furrows, those lips of his pursing thoughtfully, confusedly. “He watched me die and then brought me back.”
A pause, pregnant and nearly sinister.
His voice comes through the air, broken and unsure as he stares into the blackness of the sea that is riddled with the soft reflection of silvered, twinkling stars. “Why would he bring me back?”
svedka
@[Ryatah]