[AW] [FALL] * penumbra ' '

[Michael]

"I think we deserve
a soft epilogue, my love.
we are good people
and we've suffered enough."

We are not here to make enemies.
Michael turns that same, withering gaze on Moira (even if it is softer, rimmed by flowers that bloom in tones of why? and please just let me help you before wilting away just as quickly) and breathes out what is either a long sigh or the end of a deep breath - he isn't sure. Ramses is all gnashing teeth and equally dark looks and perhaps Michael doesn't realize what he's teetering on the edge of, doesn't know that this is a cliff and in one more step he's over the edge, falling into the ocean or breaking himself on the rocks below. 

But Moira asks it of him, and he trades his withering look for one full of placid disinterest, and says to her, "Of course we aren't," before turning an apologetic smile on Ramses and settling in at Moira's side.

The corn is dark and it blots out the thin moonlight, letting it through in only shivering pools here and there, except on the carved paths that wash them in the distant orange glow of the city and the white dust of the stars. Overhead the night sky is cast out like a map, bright and singing, dark blue and darker black freckled with light.

Michael has only ever seen Denocte as an outsider. He has only ever seen anything as an outsider. And suddenly Michael feels the wind blowing up the side of his cliff, feels the spray of the sea and knows that if he looks down he will find nothing but a break in the crust and the ocean rising up to meet him - but he doesn't step off, doesn't plunge like he wants.

Because Moira asks it of him.
Instead Michael waits, walking beside them. He may look embarrassed, watching his feet fall as he walks, aware that they're close only because the sway of Moira's body keeps bumping them together - but he doesn't think that he is. He thinks only that he is tired of festivals, and of men with feral, toothy grins, and of ghosts in the corn.

But Moira asks it of him, so.