she’s strong,
but she’s exhausted..
The night had been long. Far, far too long.
Not more than eight hours before, under a star-streaked sky, had she and her Emissary delivered the regime’s decree to their people. The Court had been angry, furious, scared, in every right they should have been. She had expected it — prepared for it. But there had been two things that Aislinn had not seen coming. Two things that still constricted her beaten heart..
Asterion’s coldness.. and Rostislav’s rage.
She was not sure which of them had hurt her more.
Now, she wanders, roaming the sun-drenched expanse of her homeland. In the distance, she knows that the Pass smolders with the last of Gilgamesh’s frost flames. She knows that the Raven Gates are shut — impenetrable. And she knows.. she knows that in another place, another court, her once-lover is there. Seemingly without the pain of their breaking, of the galaxy that is Duty and Sacrifice that stretches between them both like a solitary thing.
Aislinn had not slept. The long night and dawn weigh heavy upon her shoulders. She is Atlas, the god who holds the world, for that is the weight of responsibility that sits on her phantom crown.
Like a ghost, she is a whisper in the open sea of sweetgrass and honey. Salt burns her nostrils, her throat, where the ocean still clings to her sides in the memory of waves. The breeze murmurs around her, and she swears — oh, she swears — that she can hear the voices of her people on the wind. Their outbursts, their pleas, their fears, their accusations. The beating sun answers them, bearing their truths where she cannot. Her chest would have been cleaved, made damaged by the harshness of yesterday, had it not been for two.
Again, she remembers them both. Two men who had held so much sway over what was left of her heart.
Just as she is about to turn, to meander back to the City of Stars, to hear the cries of her people, a familiar figure crests the hills. Calligo above, the oxygen hitches in her lungs, her throat made sandpaper as she looks. The sway of him is real, all too real. Not a memory nor apparition of the night’s events come to haunt her. Aislinn remembers. For how could she forget?
You were gone.
Her words are poison on her tongue. But the truth always did hurt, did it not?
She is still — so, so still as he moves. Aislinn’s lips part, and she’s barely breathing, not prepared not prepared not prepared..
”Rostislav,” she whispers. Maybe he will see her, hear her. Maybe.. maybe, he will not.
@Rostislav ♡
Not more than eight hours before, under a star-streaked sky, had she and her Emissary delivered the regime’s decree to their people. The Court had been angry, furious, scared, in every right they should have been. She had expected it — prepared for it. But there had been two things that Aislinn had not seen coming. Two things that still constricted her beaten heart..
Asterion’s coldness.. and Rostislav’s rage.
She was not sure which of them had hurt her more.
Now, she wanders, roaming the sun-drenched expanse of her homeland. In the distance, she knows that the Pass smolders with the last of Gilgamesh’s frost flames. She knows that the Raven Gates are shut — impenetrable. And she knows.. she knows that in another place, another court, her once-lover is there. Seemingly without the pain of their breaking, of the galaxy that is Duty and Sacrifice that stretches between them both like a solitary thing.
Aislinn had not slept. The long night and dawn weigh heavy upon her shoulders. She is Atlas, the god who holds the world, for that is the weight of responsibility that sits on her phantom crown.
Like a ghost, she is a whisper in the open sea of sweetgrass and honey. Salt burns her nostrils, her throat, where the ocean still clings to her sides in the memory of waves. The breeze murmurs around her, and she swears — oh, she swears — that she can hear the voices of her people on the wind. Their outbursts, their pleas, their fears, their accusations. The beating sun answers them, bearing their truths where she cannot. Her chest would have been cleaved, made damaged by the harshness of yesterday, had it not been for two.
Again, she remembers them both. Two men who had held so much sway over what was left of her heart.
Just as she is about to turn, to meander back to the City of Stars, to hear the cries of her people, a familiar figure crests the hills. Calligo above, the oxygen hitches in her lungs, her throat made sandpaper as she looks. The sway of him is real, all too real. Not a memory nor apparition of the night’s events come to haunt her. Aislinn remembers. For how could she forget?
You were gone.
Her words are poison on her tongue. But the truth always did hurt, did it not?
She is still — so, so still as he moves. Aislinn’s lips part, and she’s barely breathing, not prepared not prepared not prepared..
”Rostislav,” she whispers. Maybe he will see her, hear her. Maybe.. maybe, he will not.
@Rostislav ♡
