i will not be another flower
Silence is a hurricane on a stormy beach, uprooting security and hope like palm trees in the sand. There is already a mess inside her, and now it howls. It howls as a wolf to the moon - hungry, lonely, wild - and does not quiet even when he breaks his silence, breaks the glare of the tiger on him, breaks through her shores made more of chaos than relaxation in his presence. Once, it was different. Still, there are hidden alcoves and are singing, still sunny and bright and simply hoping she'll let them grow, let their cliff faces that hide them tumble away until they can bring their light to the rest of her. And although Moira is a Light Forger, she is so poor when it comes to letting the light into her own heart, her own soul, that it is veiled in shadows, masked in the abyss, the beyond, in something that no amount of prying can ever truly delve into the very depths of. There are valleys of her unexplored and she does not mind.
She does not mind as Neerja's rough tongue caresses her cheek for only a moment. Then, she turns to Asterion. Turns and feels her heart tear, another ragged edge lost to darkness, another tattered piece falling into his ocean. Gods he undoes her. "If you will not sit, then I shall come to you," her words are as soft as the candlelight around the chamber, as soft as faerie lights dangling above them, orbs appearing as she wills them, as soft as her golden gaze now peppering his skin. The phoenix drinks him down, guzzles in every last detail that she knows so well and the new details that she does not. To his cheeks she assigns the gauntness they now have, to his eyes that pleading, haunted look that she knows she put there. It hurts, it is a dagger in her heart that won't stop twisting, it is a million needles biting into her eyes, it is ice shattering on her skin over and over and over and over. Moira is undone by the differences in him, undone by her lack of trust (again), undone by the fact that she is not who she was, the girl he left went with him.
Who is she now, she wonders, as she climbs from Neerja's warm side, from her only hiding place, from security, and walks to his side with more confidence than she truly feels. She doesn't know what she looks for in those dark eyes when gold finds them, doesn't know quite what she'll find. Resignation and the last lines of hope are there, and just at the bottom she spies silver that he tries to push away - silver like that which so often ran down her own cheeks. Its twin is on his face and it is another punch that pushes all the breath from her body. The power he holds over her is extraordinary, even now.
"Asterion," she sighs on a breath, and it is not a moan of exultation but one of pain and one of longing.
No longer can she look upon that which she loves so dearly, no longer can she see the pain she's caused, the rift, the canyon arching between them. Asterion is in a race to cross its breadth, and she's fearful he won't make it. After all, he wasn't born with wings as she was, and even if he were, would he really be willing to fall. Part of her hopes he is, part of her hopes he wouldn't be, that he values his own life
It takes the courage of a lion for her to whisper it again, three little words as ash between them, the barest, most vulnerable, raw "I love you," he draws from her again and again. He pulls water from her well just to drown. "I have always loved you..." and she wants to sob. Wants to beat at his chest as she'd done to her walls, to her pillows, to the trees and the paintings and everything else when she was rabid, when she was Worse, when she was Left. Now, she does not. With all the regality of a Tonnerre, Moira kisses his cheek and pulls from herself one last courageous question, one last request with that catch-me smile she's always thrown at him time and time again. "Walk with me?" She asks at last, inclining that skinny nose of hers towards the door, challenge in her eyes.
It's the final curtain, her final show, and she only hopes she can make it through the night.
picked for my beauty and left to die
