azrael
He doesn’t want to know… he is a monk. Azrael knew this, just as Tenebrae knew, just as Elena knew… and still his oath did not seem to hold much weight. If he were a good monk, Tenebrae would have honored his word to Caligo. He would never have taken Elena from Azrael. Still too, the star-stallion knew that conceiving a child was an act that took both of them. He couldn’t put all the blame on the stallion of darkness and lies. No, Elena had been complicit too.
Azrael cannot look at her in the same way, knowing she had stolen kisses and touched another in the intimacy of night – in a way that she hadn’t offered to him. Did she love Tenebrae? Did he tell her that he loved her too? The questions sicken him as he wonders, trying hard to push them away even as she assures him that they too had something special. Not special enough – he wants to counter, but instead the stallion bites the inside of his cheek until it bleeds. It is the only way he can keep from retorting in anger to her, from letting his hurt turn to something ugly.
Only his eyes betray his inner thoughts as Azrael fights to keep his emotions in check. When she reaches to his neck, he wants to pull away – but he doesn’t. Instead the shed-star simply stands still, her lips longing against him. He wants to turn into her touch and return the gesture… but Azrael can only maintain a stony composure as his heart churns with an ache for her. She wasn’t his – he reminded himself. She had given herself to someone else – and now, their love child grew within her.
Azrael didn’t know how he could ever see her in the same way again – the girl lost in the wonder of stars, or following the haunting pull of magic through uncharted shadows. That girl was gone now, the illusion shattered.
It was always enough, I just- You just what?, he wanted to ask. But he doesn’t. Azrael wants to know why, wants answers to his thousand questions… but at the same time, he doubted his heart could bear to hear the truth. Perhaps things were best left unsaid. Understanding how the monk had earned her love and intimacy would help the situation at all.
So he lets her go, watching her leave as all the warmth of the celebration falls cold around him. Where only moments ago, he had felt hope blossoming in his chest, now there was only the ache of emptiness as he closes his eyes and tries to forget. Now, there is only a hollow numbness as he gathers up her carving with half a mind to leave it with the pieces of his heart in Delumine. But instead, Azrael mindlessly ties it to his staff, picking up the shards of his pride and leaving the garden with little more than broken dreams.
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