[private] so give me hope in the darkness

[mariner]

MARINER

He can hardly see her through the crushing darkness, so he follows, trotting into the shadows after her. He watches her leap into the sky, watches her scramble back down to the earth. He’d felt no rush of pride when she’d taken to the sky, so there is nothing for his disappointment to replace as she rushes to land. 

Someone softer than he might have smiled patiently, nudged her gently, told her that there was nothing to fear. So long as she believed in herself there was nothing she couldn’t accomplish. But he is not soft and he is not kind and there is no paternal streak buried beneath the stars scattered across his dark coat, so he only shakes his head, the corners of his mouth turned down in a hard frown.

“That’s no way to think,” he tells her. He does reach out to nudge her but there is nothing gentle about it, nothing encouraging. He pushes her back the way she had come. “Try again,” he says, leaving no room for argument. 

“Nothing will happen if you fall,” he adds, his tone sharp.

Nothing. He will not allow her to entertain the thought that anything at all will happen if she falls. He will not allow her to fill her head with the horror of possibilities. He drags in a long, shuddering breath and sets his jaw. He will not let her fail. Not because he wants to see her succeed because her failure will belong to him as much as it will belong to her. He will teach her the same way his mother taught him. 

“If you think you will fail, you will fail,” he snaps into the darkness, the same way his mother had.

i’m a shot through the dark, i’m a black sinkhole
if it weren’t for second chances, we’d all be alone

@[Islay] sorry he's meaner than i thought he was going to be!!! lmao