i'll never be
thatme again
thatme again
T
hey are a symphony of delight and danger, an eve of intrigue; Moira and Estelle, a star and a sun, two gaseous galaxies ready to fall or explode, on the precipice of greatness, on the cusp of breaking. She's always been half heartbreak and half heaven, Moira Tonnerre, the flame of the Estate that could bring the Matriarch crumbling to her knees. (Oh, in private she had, she surely had, with news of her departure, with the confession that she would follow Estelle anywhere.) Moira never knew there were limits to that, never knew she could not, on that day so long ago, follow her into the hands of death and come back gasping for air. Instead, she'd fled to find a cure, left her sweet cousin in the hands of strangers (but they seemed so holy, they cared for orphans and infants, taking in an errant teenage girl seemed like second nature) and walked away. She never meant to stay for so long, to...forget.
Sweet ancestors hear her plea, she'd never meant to forget her cousin. Some part of her never truly has.
They were, in some worlds, meant to be eternal. Perhaps, in another universe, they were more than kin, perhaps their souls were melded into one, she thinks, until there is no Moira and Estelle, just a beautiful, perfect union of two halves of the same whole, two beings never actually meant to part. So many times has the Tonnerre girl seen her cousin become so cold and frigid to another, pushing them all away with her walls of ice so that Moira would be sheltered from their families' hoarfrost hearts that beat, beat, beat into oblivion and darkness much like their tempers and their tolerance. Never in her lifetime has she expected to be on the receiving end of it, but she should have known better, should have realized her happiness, no matter how hard she fought, clawed, and cried for, is not meant to be so easy to hold on to.
Nothing in life that's worth it ever came so easily as that.
So she hums softly her amusement and displeasure, hums softly her acknowledgment of the shutters concealing Estelle's eyes behind those pale lashes that she knows like her own scars, like her own skin. Those lilac eyes are her favorite in the entire world, more than her mother's or fathers, more than her brother's and the twins', more than her own ever would be. More than that, she loves Estelle with every fiber and cell in her body, she loves her and would, if only she could, cling to her for eternity if only the world would promise never to part them.
But it does not, and it cannot, so she does not whimper like some weanling pup, still hungry for its mothers teet, still too scared and naïve in the world to know that it has claws and teeth and can take care of itself. The ice of her cousin's smile does not make the phoenix falter, instead she stands taller, squares her shoulders, and throws a warmer grin back. How she shines then, how the stars upon her skin wink at her cousin. It is a light that Estelle never knew - how could she? Their family always expected Moira to somehow inherit or learn the powers of healing.
Some part of her thinks that she was always meant to be a star exploding.
No tempest can take her down.
"I have yearned for the silver of your skin, Estelle, none have quite struck me the same. Just as my love for you will never change no matter the distance or pain - you, my beloved, will always be the most dear in my heart." Never has she lied to Estelle, not truly. Even when the truths were painful and would lash at the skin of girls still shaking and learning who they were, she would not lie to her dear one, her sweet heart. Estelle, her guardian, her protector, her first love and perhaps her last. "A truth I will take with your poison, one request, just one: let it taste like sugar." At that, she pours the rest of her drink down her throat and she knows (oh she knows) it is not alcohol within and no amount of sweetness will cushion the blow.
