[P] the violence in the pouring rain

[Theodosia]

let our eyes show the
fire in our hearts tonight

When she had been a child, Anzhelo had told her stories about love, but he had never mentioned how all-consuming it would be; like her body is a storm she cannot control, that her magic has no dominion over. Perhaps it was because he was inexperienced with this kind of love, that he turned to stories -- even the sort of love between a mother and child, he’d never truly known himself, and her heart aches whenever she imagines her dam teaching himself how to love her.

(She thinks, of all the people she’s met, her dam might be the strongest person she knows, for all his kindness. Or perhaps it was his kindness that made him strong.)

Either way, she had not been prepared for this.

The command in Marisol’s voice nearly brings her to her knees. She is shaking, dissipating lightning around her body as though that would ward away the way her stomach twists around a deepening warmth, the way she so easily crumbles beneath Marisol’s touch with a noise she would describe as embarrassing if she weren’t so focused on keeping her footing against her sudden weakness.

“--yes,” It’s a confession she cannot bite back in time. She thinks maybe that she doesn’t want to hold it back, that she is tired of biting her tongue until it bleeds, and her self-control is shredded further with every second of the touch of lips against her skin, with every poorly-kept secret desire that the commander drags into the light with her words. Perhaps it even makes her bold, bold enough that her own teeth tease gently at the bristled crop of Marisol’s hair, tugging lightly at the spot just behind her ears.

“I want you to want me, the way that I want you.” This will be her undoing. She can feel it in the very marrow of her bones, and she is powerless to stop it. “Not just for tonight, not just something that we’ll pretend never happened in the morning.” She has never believed in fairytales, but she wants the commander in her bed and in her future, wants to believe that there is some truth to the stories her dam had told her about love existing and thriving.

She is plunging off a cliff and her wings will not be able to save her this time, and oh, she knows that if she crashes, she will not survive it. Her heart is tender enough as it is, and she is offering it up to Marisol on a silver platter, in the only way that she knows how.

credits
@Marisol