divinity will stain your fingers and mouth like a pomegranate; it will swallow you whole and spit you out
Vercingtorix comes here because it is where she used to dance.The tavern is ramshackle, old, on the lower end of the economic scale. He had been in Novus long enough to follow her here, one night; and it had been too difficult for him to mend the void, come forth from the darkness, and speak to her. She had seemed impossibly far away; planets; stars. Yes, Torix remembers. It had been like looking upon the cool, distant face of a star.
Her eyes had even glanced, briefly, over him. He had watched her dance, from the back. He’d worn a hood, of course, and stood among the thong of patrons. He simply looked as if he belonged; her eyes had not even lingered on him.
In her ribbons, and her war point, and the cry of her broken heart.
It was watching her dance that told Torix she didn’t love him anymore.
He supposes, of course, it was for the better. He never could have loved her the way he wanted to; the way she deserved to be love. He stares, now, at the stage where other dancers dance. They are outfitted in silks, painted with metallic colours, performing acrobatics. Yes. It was for the better, that she didn’t love him anymore. He could never forgive her, for the lies, for being—for being a woman, not his companion, not his trusted soldier in arms.
But when Vercingtorix dreams; when he romanticises; it is always her. He hates himself for it, of course. But somewhere along the line, Bondike had become his dream, his partner. They were meant to have spent their lives together, twin sides of the same blade. They might have married; had children. But that was besides the point. That only kept up an image, a front. They were always destined to come back to one another—
The dancers bow, and file out of stage. The next performer comes on, and Vercingtorix goes to the bar. A seed of anger is growing under his breast; but the seed is an ember, and it burns, and burns, and burns.
Damascus is in the mountains, on the cliffsides, staring out at the city from a distance. He is watching, and feeling all of Vercingtorix’s hurt. Through their Bond he says, We could always find her. We could always apologise.
Torix is taken aback at how quickly he had gone from a singular “me” to a sudden “we.” He says nothing back; he only imagines all the ways it would go poorly and how in no reality does it go well. So he orders a drink, and watches the next set of dancers as they begin to perform in the tavern. He knows, of course, she is far from here; he knows, of course, she is taken by the sea.
And that, too, is something he cannot forgive himself for. But he is not so lost in his thoughts, in his regret, that he does not realise he isn't alone at the bar. No. There is someone else there, who seems as heavy as he feels. Quietly, he orders them a drink and toasts to them.
The broken find the broken. That's the way of the world.
"Torix." || @Morrighan
wine-dark and wanting. you will reach for it again and again, greedy human fingers clutching at everything you can reach. the divine will curl its way through your veins and take you over, and it will not leave you quietly. i feel divinity in my bones like aching; like fire.
