cut open my heart, right at the scar, laura pony

[jamie]

Jamie

Once upon a time, he might have recognized her anywhere.
She had been so beautiful that it pained him to look at her.

How he had snapped at her not to come any closer because he felt her beauty like a physical ache. He had averted his gaze so as to not let it cripple him any further.

He had been so weak then.
And then she had emerged from the depths of the river sometime after the weakness had been drained from his body. He had been someone whole and real and worthy then, but their encounter had been brief and she had slid back into the water and he had slid back into the shadows.

So much has changed since then. Since he had looked at her frame, heavy with child, and asked her about love. A foreign thing of which he knew almost nothing. He’d asked her as if he had any business asking it.

What would she call him?
Mine.

The shark-tooth smile deepens. “You,” he breathes back, coming closer still. Darkness emerging from darkness.

He is not afraid to look at her now, though he sways on his feet the closer he gets. “Look at you,” he murmurs, which is to say that he can look at her. “Beautiful, even in all of this darkness.”

( FROM THE DESTRUCTION, OUT OF THE FLAME
YOU NEED A VILLAIN, GIVE ME A NAME )

@[evia]