Moira Tonnerre
i will burn and burn and burn again, and you will come home safely
She should have seen the hollow, should have noticed the forests sprouting tall and thick and wild between them. Oh, Moira realizes she should have felt the way the winds scream and buffet against the cliffsides that are Caine, the cliffs she so precariously let herself balance upon, wings almost outspread without any confidence to back it up. But she did not.
She noticed none of it when succumbing to rich emotions, thick emotions, heavy emotions that fall like boulders down his cliffsides and into ocean waters ever so eager, ever so greedy to swallow all of the crumbling edges that are her. The stiffening of his spine (of the entirety of the black man, the shadowed man, the lying man) should have warned her.
Perhaps Moira Tonnerre is beyond warnings and reason.
There is no time to wonder as the coldness of him, the stillness of him, at last seeps into her. Like a glacier breaking, his actions are slow, his realizations and responses giving great groans, creaking louder and louder before ever showing on the surface. It is the subtleties she feels, the way his muscles are tense and his breaths are sharp. No kindness, no comfort, nothing akin to compassion shows in the Pegasus who made promises to break. And those words, snake-skin soft whispering into her hair - riotous curls seeming to leap toward him as she had in fury and anger and confusion, they toll like the bells of Notre Dame, calling her home and calling her away and calling, calling, calling.
There is that sweltering rage swallowed by the squall of her anguish, there it sits waiting, sizzling, forge-hot and ready to strike. The song in her blood is one of hopelessness, one of a girl losing her way with no northern star, one in the dark still learning what it is to smile instead of bleed. And it swells and swells with the rising tide of her confusion, of that anger so long absent in her youth jumping now to her defense.
He withdraws from that anger, he withdraws from his broken girl. A mere puppet to play with just as she'd always been in that house that was left so long ago. Will he burn if she touches him? Will his skin peel away to blackened bones?
But she does not want to hurt him with a touch.
And so a viper's sneer slips onto dark lips, lips that look like pools of blood below eyes that shine with accusations. "Because your life matters Caine. Because you matter to me. Ancestors guide me, you're daft and stupid and slow." It is a snarl. Smoky words acrid like burnt flesh, harsh with cutting edges. "Because I care what happens to you."
And she steps towards him, a challenge as his head lowers, Moira glares for all she is worth. "What will you do about it, Caine?" she purrs, she hisses, she practically spits. "If this were a cliff would you watch me after you threw me off? You could push me down now, throw me low and watch if I break. Will you kill me for caring? Wrap your magic about my throat and squeeze," emboldened, the phoenix steps forward again. They are awash with sunlight, and she does not care if he would attack.
They are wild things rearing to fight.
"I've seen others die, Caine. I've killed them and never looked back. I'll tell you a secret - they never mattered. But you, you horrid man -" wings ruffle, they flare and curl and retreat meekly to her sides as though preparing for a lashing, preparing for the burning that comes, preparing for those dark rooms and endless nights where she lost her voice long before she lost the sensations in her limbs. "You matter," and it is a hoarse whisper, a defeated whisper that beats with her own self loathing. He wasn't supposed to matter. None of them were. This was to be a home for Estelle and herself, a safe place they would lie low and merely exist by one another's side. Isra and Eik and Asterion and the twins and Caine never should have come into her life.
For the first time, she falters. There is an exhaustion that is not physical, but bone-deep and mental and emotional that is far older than the young age of the phoenix. It almost seems too much to bear. And how she tries to harden herself then. How she stiffens as he did. It's almost tragic to see the way her head finally falls, curls covering sad eyes, old eyes, and they do not rise again. "Go ahead then, walk away. We're just strangers after all, aren't we?"
She noticed none of it when succumbing to rich emotions, thick emotions, heavy emotions that fall like boulders down his cliffsides and into ocean waters ever so eager, ever so greedy to swallow all of the crumbling edges that are her. The stiffening of his spine (of the entirety of the black man, the shadowed man, the lying man) should have warned her.
Perhaps Moira Tonnerre is beyond warnings and reason.
There is no time to wonder as the coldness of him, the stillness of him, at last seeps into her. Like a glacier breaking, his actions are slow, his realizations and responses giving great groans, creaking louder and louder before ever showing on the surface. It is the subtleties she feels, the way his muscles are tense and his breaths are sharp. No kindness, no comfort, nothing akin to compassion shows in the Pegasus who made promises to break. And those words, snake-skin soft whispering into her hair - riotous curls seeming to leap toward him as she had in fury and anger and confusion, they toll like the bells of Notre Dame, calling her home and calling her away and calling, calling, calling.
There is that sweltering rage swallowed by the squall of her anguish, there it sits waiting, sizzling, forge-hot and ready to strike. The song in her blood is one of hopelessness, one of a girl losing her way with no northern star, one in the dark still learning what it is to smile instead of bleed. And it swells and swells with the rising tide of her confusion, of that anger so long absent in her youth jumping now to her defense.
He withdraws from that anger, he withdraws from his broken girl. A mere puppet to play with just as she'd always been in that house that was left so long ago. Will he burn if she touches him? Will his skin peel away to blackened bones?
But she does not want to hurt him with a touch.
And so a viper's sneer slips onto dark lips, lips that look like pools of blood below eyes that shine with accusations. "Because your life matters Caine. Because you matter to me. Ancestors guide me, you're daft and stupid and slow." It is a snarl. Smoky words acrid like burnt flesh, harsh with cutting edges. "Because I care what happens to you."
And she steps towards him, a challenge as his head lowers, Moira glares for all she is worth. "What will you do about it, Caine?" she purrs, she hisses, she practically spits. "If this were a cliff would you watch me after you threw me off? You could push me down now, throw me low and watch if I break. Will you kill me for caring? Wrap your magic about my throat and squeeze," emboldened, the phoenix steps forward again. They are awash with sunlight, and she does not care if he would attack.
They are wild things rearing to fight.
"I've seen others die, Caine. I've killed them and never looked back. I'll tell you a secret - they never mattered. But you, you horrid man -" wings ruffle, they flare and curl and retreat meekly to her sides as though preparing for a lashing, preparing for the burning that comes, preparing for those dark rooms and endless nights where she lost her voice long before she lost the sensations in her limbs. "You matter," and it is a hoarse whisper, a defeated whisper that beats with her own self loathing. He wasn't supposed to matter. None of them were. This was to be a home for Estelle and herself, a safe place they would lie low and merely exist by one another's side. Isra and Eik and Asterion and the twins and Caine never should have come into her life.
For the first time, she falters. There is an exhaustion that is not physical, but bone-deep and mental and emotional that is far older than the young age of the phoenix. It almost seems too much to bear. And how she tries to harden herself then. How she stiffens as he did. It's almost tragic to see the way her head finally falls, curls covering sad eyes, old eyes, and they do not rise again. "Go ahead then, walk away. We're just strangers after all, aren't we?"
@Caine | "moira" | notes: ohmygodwhatishappening
