[P] but what of his love?

[Elena]

It's always a matter, isn't it, of waiting for the world to come unraveled? When things hold together, it's always only temporary

T

here is a dark place in Elena’s mind that she dares not tread into because it harbors the worst of her thoughts and her feelings. Worse than breaking Aerwir’s heart, worse than leaving her family, leaving Lilli, lying to Tenebrae. It is a piece that wishes Elli out of existence. She loves her daughter, more than this world, she loves her more than she had ever thought possible, and loves her more and more each day. But Elli is a constant reminder of all the worst parts of herself are prominent enough that no matter how much she tries to bury them, that they would reveal themselves in her own daughter.

She sees in Elli her own reckless nature, the way she dances on the cliff sides as if she could never fall. It is not from arrogance, but from the desperate need to feel like you are floating, flying. There are moments when she looks into Elli’s eyes and is haunted by the way every emotion she has ever felt lives buried beneath them. She wonders if this is why a mother could abandon her child because she looks into their eyes and saw too much of herself.

He doesn't understand.
Not many do, so she cannot blame him.

“It’s okay,” she reassures him even if she doesn't want to. And then she listens, she listens because he had once extended the same to her, and she would not deny him that. She listens because there is a fog of poison that still lives in her lungs and she doesn't know what will happen when she opens her mouth. (There is a terrifying heartbeat that she wonders if she would breathe great and powerful flames.)

She feels a a gentle nick on her shoulder at the way his words clips and bounce, the way he feels like a child tripping on the playground, only to pull another child down with him. She tries to keep the shock from her face as he speaks, instead she focuses on the emotions that leap from him with astonishing clarity. Never had she been able to read his emotions so easily, never have they been so vibrant.

She wonders how he can decide to take the life of another.
She wonders if it is the same way a ruler goes from thinking himself a king to believing himself to be a god.
Does Torix believe himself a god?

No.
Gods do not feel regret.
They smite without such burdens on their shoulders.
And that is the biggest difference between mortals and gods.

There are many things she could say in this moment to him. So many things. She starts with the truth. “We love to break things, don't we? And then try to fix them, only to break them again,” she says. “I have a habit of ruining all of the good in my life—or, at the very least, taking the bad and making it worse.” She thinks of the secrets she has kept. From her daughter, this one is most apparent. She had not been the root of this poison, but was she not to blame for not thrusting it into the sunshine? Was she not the true villain for knowing and not telling Elliana, not telling Tenebrae? Even if she hadn’t intended to do wrong, she cannot help but wonder if she didn’t because she was scared of losing him.

She swallows hard and fights the fear that forms like tears at the corners of her eyes. “Do you still love them, Torix? Do you still desire them?” She asks. Elena moves her golden head close to him once more. “What if I could take that away? If just for a moment?”

@Vercingtorix
Code by rallidae
picture by cannon