that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
He shouldn’t be surprised that she brushes off his thank you, but he still feels the twinge of something in his breast that stings. He shifts in place as though he could dislocate the discomfort, but all he manages to do is feel it more acutely and he laughs, the sound a little bitter. “Then I retract my thank you,” his smile is sharp in the corners but dull in comparison to his eyes that sweep over her. “I didn’t realize that I was speaking to someone so versed in the act of dying that it was commonplace.” He swallows and ignores what she had said about saving him—he was beyond saving anyhow. Her death wouldn’t change that.
Instead he lets her move forward, musing thoughtfully, and he cannot help but wonder if this would be more commonplace had he not driven her away during those first interactions. Would they share their thoughts with each other like this? Would they be able to simply interact casually? Or would they always have been destined to be this guarded with one another? Hiding away their true thoughts.
He watches as she glances up, taking the opportunity to study her unabashedly. She had grown since the last time he had seen her—the last time she took tooth and nail to his throat, deservedly so. She was stronger now, more mature. There were more edges to her, more scars, and a weight over her shoulders that he wasn’t sure he was imagining. He was surprise that she did not simply bend beneath it.
At her pointed statement, he laughs again, this time more genuine. He shakes his head and, for a moment, he looks like the boy he might have been, was almost, still was. The boy who would have laughed and raced Hyaline mountains with her instead of provoking her into fight or flight mode at every turn.
“Don’t tempt me to collect, Mazikeen,” a grin as the shadows curl like living things at his feet.
"I am as good at that as my mother is at saving."
This said with a near sadness he doesn't bother to hide.
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
@[Mazikeen]