Even as close as they are, his heart strains to be closer. Closer and closer until her smile is his smile, her eyes his eyes, her heart his heart.
"Liar," she says, and despite all the love in her voice he is taken aback. It is the first time he has held the title of liar. It feels uncomfortable, until she brings him back with a kiss to the chest that feels so good it aches. "I will not forget a single sunrise," she continues, and he takes it as a challenge. "We shall see," He huffs gently, as if in disbelief... but oh, he knows the marvels of her mind, knows the vastness and the brilliance of it. And maybe love has run off with some of his wits or maybe it has uncovered a well of faith. Regardless, he really believes what he says next, in the silent way of speaking: "If anyone could, it would be you."
Despite the regal curl of her horn, he doesn't often think of her as a queen. But he does now when she looks at him, and somewhere inside of her there is a cold flame, and he thinks that if the fire in them meets it could burn a hole right through this wicked world.
"There will be nothing to forgive," he whispers back to her. They are survivors yet for all the things they have seen and done, they both have secret hearts that are tender and innocent. Maybe some day violence will seep into their souls, anger into their hearts, but he thinks-- he hopes-- that as long as they have each other to come back to, the gentlest pieces of themselves will be sheltered from the rot.
He tenses when he hears the word "crow" and the tremble in her voice, and the sweet breeze that dances in the space between them. Raum, he repeats so he will not forget. And maybe a part of him thinks his magic can find this man if he repeats the name enough, like a summoning. Raum. Raum. He wants to run, he wants to hunt, he wants to be a creature that Isra would not recognize, and should not love. "... a disagreement on what makes a blade and how orphans should be given homes." He cocks an ear in skepticism. A disagreement. About orphans. "He has no blades anymore but those made of his body. I turned his knives to daisies."
She smiles.
The love and the pride swells in him and overflows with sudden laughter. He lips at her smooth cheek, breathes her in like a dying man. (Why did you choose me, you wild, wonderful woman? Me, out of every other shipwreck.) But the levity does not last, could not last. The crow is out there still and this all stinks of something unfinished.
Slowly, with a sigh, he lowers himself into the mud beside Isra. From here the dreaming tree rises tall above them like a flag- love was here- and insect sounds gently wash over them like waves on a beach. Their thoughts come and go and he can smell fear in the air around them, his and her own, for the same and different reasons. It mingles with the floral scents of his gifts and he wonders if they are tainted or liberated by it.
Again, she smiles.
He twines his love around her like fingers, like roots.
"Will you come home with me when all this is done?" He gestures to the lake before them, with all the colorful tents flapping like strange birds in the wind. With his thoughts he paints her a desert sunrise, a violence of pastels-- the sort he used to love the most, before Isra came and turned everything on its head. "Just for a little while." Solterra is not an inherently safe place, but at least there he would have more power to protect her. His eyes rest very deliberately on the lake, so that she won't see the painful sort of need in them. So that she can say no if she wishes, without having to see how it wounds him. (it is likely in vain-- their hearts are too in tune for deception-- but he tries nonetheless.)
"Oh, sweet dream, fall with me
fall fast-- fall free-- fall with me."
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art by Pherigo
@Isra
Time makes fools of us all
