With her wing draped like a blanket over him, the world seems for a while very soft and very warm. He forgets, or at least finds it easy to not think about, how fragile everything is outside this room. It is temporary, of course it is temporary. The word love is suspended for a moment, as though it might fly-- but it falls instead, heavy as a stone. He feels the violent shifting of her heart as thought it were a physical thing.
Eik is not sure what response he expected from Moira Tonnerre, but it was not this. Would that he could take his words back,
(he wonders, abruptly, if he might be able to do that one day- not just read minds but re-write them. But this is something to ponder later--)
for when she looks at him through those long lashes, he feels like a damned thing. Then she steps away and the world again feels a little colder, a little harsher around the edges, and uncertainty creeps across his features.
"I think it's a terrible thing... to be in love..."
Her words wound him more than any physical blow could have, and at first his only reaction is the barest turn of his lips in a small, confused frown. He knows, too well, how similar love and violence can be. How he would slay an army to protect Isra. How he would set fire to himself too, if that's what it took. He feels the truth of her words in his heart. Destruction lies in his chest, waiting for the opportunity to spring forward. But there is peace too, where for so long there has been torment, and he is not sure how to describe this without starting at the beginning-- which he does not want to do.
He straightens, almost as if in defiance. "Yes, I am." Despite the abundance of words that fight to be said, he finds himself speechless. There are millions of things he could say about Isra, or himself, or his stained-glass ideas of what love is, but he does not. "She makes me better--" it seems as though he means to say more, but he doesn't. Words could not do this feeling justice, even if he were better at choosing the right ones.
He tries again anyway.
"In Solterra, they say there are flowers that will wait hundreds of years to bloom. The conditions must be perfect- the moisture, the temperature, the sunlight, everything. You would never know they're there, until one day you wake up and the desert is full of color." He finds himself looking at the dust in the corner, the books stacked on the table, anything but Moira's burning eyes. His next words are spoken telepathically, and as he speaks he paints her an image of the desert bursting into color. "I didn't think there was still anything pure inside of me, until I found Isra. She's what the bloom was waiting for."
Eik meets her eyes once more, and he tries to see how much of a fool she thinks he is. "Do you think I making a terrible mistake?"
the biggest ache was mine
@
Time makes fools of us all
