[private] you know you're gonna need to fight

[Selaphiel]

selaphiel

these days i don’t pray when i close my eyes

He wonders if he could be so selfless. Could he sacrifice his life for someone and then continue to smile at them so readily? He has done nothing to deserve all of the kindness that Mazikeen has offered him so freely, he knows that, and he tries so valiantly to swallow the guilt that blooms in his throat when she smiles at him now.

How can she be glad to see him?
Does he not remind her of death?
Is it not all she can think of when she sees him?

He aches with how sincerely pleased she seems to be in his company. He has to shift beneath the unbearable weight of it as he nods, studying the landscape in this new light. How different it looks. How different they all look. 

But she thoroughly arrests his attention when she tells him that she’d been hoping to see him and he turns his head to look at her plainly, his brow darkened with confusion. As if he cannot possibly understand why she’d want to see him. But he remembers, too, how he’d told her that he’d hoped he could be useful to her and he thinks it must be a child growing inside her. Perhaps she will ask him to warn her should he ever smell death on it. 

“Me?” he asks, soft. “Why?”

The question she asks is not the one he expects but he smiles something reserved, cautious with the mention of his sister. “Better,” he answers. Not great, not even good yet, but the sun has helped tremendously. She is a thing of light, he has realized, and the stench of death has begun to subside the longer the light has stayed. 

I just bite my tongue a bit harder

@[Mazikeen]