i swallowed the sun and it burned my tongue and it burned my throat but it couldn't burn away your memory
His grin is as barbaric as it is tragic and beautiful, remorseful in a way that only Michael knows how to wear so well. Still it makes her sad. There is a pit in her stomach, and it does not scream but it roars, it is a crumbling echelon, a slow destruction and hollowing until all that will be left in her bones is light with no trace of the once-girl left. Maybe, just maybe, she's as much a sinking ship as Michael, but she refuses to acknowledge that, to accept it. Days will pass and she will go on. Moira is immortal.
Moira is eternal.
Moira is.
And that leaves time for so much sadness that is so alike and unlike the sadness that the man in gold and scarves wears. Two faces of the same coin.
Again he surfaces from some great fog, gone from her again and again. What thoughts, what horrors, the phoenix wonders, must keep him awake and so far away? Are they like the nightmares that plagued her for so many years, that still, when the days are especially terrible, come back and make her writhe and scream and wake up in a cold sweat with tears on her face? Or is it something else, someone else, somewhere else, that still calls to him as a siren, demanding his attention, unwilling to release him from their hold?
Golden eyes squeeze closed, her heart throbs for a sister she believes to be gone, gone, gone forever from her. Like Estelle. Like the twins. Like Eluoan. Like Marquelle. Like so, so, so many faces. Still, there is a broken smile on her lips, it makes them crack as she does, and phantom hands reach up as dark lips do, brushing softly against his cheeks, his ear. Then, "How do you lie so easily?" she asks as ash on the wind.
As she pulls away, he watches her as one might a far-off ship that holds their lover. Or perhaps it is the sea that he loves so much that he cannot bear to come back to her for too long. Doubt is a beast and its hunger is endless. Sent as a plague upon her mind, her confidences, her trust, where its black paws land, joy withers into despair.
Again he tells her that she is beautiful, and then he tells her that she should sleep. Sleep has long eluded her, but she does not need to tell him that. Not when he's trying. Not when he's here. Even though every ounce of her is shaking on the inside, turned to pudding or jelly or some other gooey substance that doesn't quite want to keep its shape and stand on its own, she still has some part of her that does not want him to go.
Long ago, more months than she can count, she asked him to stay with her a little longer. That night, he'd given her his scarf and along the seashore they'd enjoyed one another's company and sweet nothings for only an evening. The next day, he'd been gone.
Now, she looks at him like a dying star, like a girl unraveled, with a lump in her throat and says "Come with me now, please." Because Moira Tonnerre does not want to be alone, not again, not tonight, not when he's back and she's seen him. Not when he could still be some awful dream taunting and haunting her midnight hours. So she picks up her cup again and empties it, forgetting the food because her stomach is too busy and too knotted to be hungry any longer, and then waits for him like she would be willing to wait a thousand years. Already, she's waited months and months and weeks and days and hours.
Would he come?
