Bexley declines the plum with a shake of her head, though she watches as Moira cuts it, the tearing of deep red skin into yellow flesh, how streams of juice come tumbling down. She declines, although hunger is gnawing at the edges of her stomach like a rabid dog, because she knows it is a waste. She knows she doesn’t deserve it. It will be tasteless to her, no matter how sweet it tastes to Moira—she cannot enjoy it without sickening guilt, that she should be alive to eat and drink and celebrate while her… while Acton is dead.
Everything she’s eaten since that girl came to her in the markets has turned to sand in her throat. It is a dryness that cannot be sated with water nor wine.
She dips her head to rest against her leg. It feels strange, how slow her heart has started to beat, and the endless electric buzzing of her body has faded, just enough that she can feel the dip of her forehead against her knee, the butterfly-soft beat of her lashes against her own skin. Moira’s wing across her spine has all the comfort and warmth of a weighted blanket; finally Bexley can let out a breath that isn’t choked by tears, and it is a foreign sensation. She slumps against Moira’s side. The warmth of the fire starts to seep into her bones, and her eyes sink closed.
Moira’s voice is multifaceted and addictive, an IV drug, an opal: Bexley’s ears swivel back and forth as she talks, and with each passing word she falls closer and closer to sleep, or to death, until she is dragged into a black-fugue state half-waking, half-dreaming that leaves her paralyzed and defenseless. (But she was defenseless anyway, so what difference does it make?) She listens, but her brain struggles to keep up. Across the back of her eyelids plays a never-ending pattern of plums and pomegranates, blood and bone, that both threatens and distracts her from paying full attention.
There was a girl once… so close…
Bexley thinks instantly of Florentine, but she does not open her eyes, does not move, does not breathe, don’t do this to me again, dear God, and the chill that runs through her veins is as much hope as it is terrible, terrible fear.
The press of her skin…
Her chest ruptures in a half-stifled sob.
“I have lost too many people to believe that,” she says, voice shaking against her teeth. Every corpse she's ever seen comes to mind. The blood rushes to her head until it fills with black, and she thinks she might faint, not for the first time recently. But the press of Moira’s lips to her cheek brings her back all at once, sends her roaring to the surface as suddenly as a bird shot to the ground, and she sits up with a gasp and her pupils blown to full moons, the whites of her eyes gleaming a little, as if the touch pressed to her jaw were a slap and not a kiss. She stares at Moira with a cornered gaze, head tilted up high and nostrils flared; liquid gold drips from the edges of her mouth and sizzles against her skin for a split second before disappearing completely.
Slowly she comes down from the high of her anger, her shock, and the magic fades out of her. Every inch of Moira’s skin pressed against hers burns and burns and burns. I can’t do this again, thinks Bexley desperately, and already knows that she will.
Her body unwinds, knot by knot, vertebrae by vertebrae, and Solterra’s golden girl leans closer—she lays her head across Moira’s spine in one smooth, slow movement, and if her lips or teeth brush against the emissary’s skin like the ghost of an invitation, who’s to say it’s not accidental? “If she came back—“ her voice fades for a moment, then returns in a wave. “If she came back, would you give up… the people you love here, to have her?”
Everything she’s eaten since that girl came to her in the markets has turned to sand in her throat. It is a dryness that cannot be sated with water nor wine.
She dips her head to rest against her leg. It feels strange, how slow her heart has started to beat, and the endless electric buzzing of her body has faded, just enough that she can feel the dip of her forehead against her knee, the butterfly-soft beat of her lashes against her own skin. Moira’s wing across her spine has all the comfort and warmth of a weighted blanket; finally Bexley can let out a breath that isn’t choked by tears, and it is a foreign sensation. She slumps against Moira’s side. The warmth of the fire starts to seep into her bones, and her eyes sink closed.
Moira’s voice is multifaceted and addictive, an IV drug, an opal: Bexley’s ears swivel back and forth as she talks, and with each passing word she falls closer and closer to sleep, or to death, until she is dragged into a black-fugue state half-waking, half-dreaming that leaves her paralyzed and defenseless. (But she was defenseless anyway, so what difference does it make?) She listens, but her brain struggles to keep up. Across the back of her eyelids plays a never-ending pattern of plums and pomegranates, blood and bone, that both threatens and distracts her from paying full attention.
There was a girl once… so close…
Bexley thinks instantly of Florentine, but she does not open her eyes, does not move, does not breathe, don’t do this to me again, dear God, and the chill that runs through her veins is as much hope as it is terrible, terrible fear.
The press of her skin…
Her chest ruptures in a half-stifled sob.
“I have lost too many people to believe that,” she says, voice shaking against her teeth. Every corpse she's ever seen comes to mind. The blood rushes to her head until it fills with black, and she thinks she might faint, not for the first time recently. But the press of Moira’s lips to her cheek brings her back all at once, sends her roaring to the surface as suddenly as a bird shot to the ground, and she sits up with a gasp and her pupils blown to full moons, the whites of her eyes gleaming a little, as if the touch pressed to her jaw were a slap and not a kiss. She stares at Moira with a cornered gaze, head tilted up high and nostrils flared; liquid gold drips from the edges of her mouth and sizzles against her skin for a split second before disappearing completely.
Slowly she comes down from the high of her anger, her shock, and the magic fades out of her. Every inch of Moira’s skin pressed against hers burns and burns and burns. I can’t do this again, thinks Bexley desperately, and already knows that she will.
Her body unwinds, knot by knot, vertebrae by vertebrae, and Solterra’s golden girl leans closer—she lays her head across Moira’s spine in one smooth, slow movement, and if her lips or teeth brush against the emissary’s skin like the ghost of an invitation, who’s to say it’s not accidental? “If she came back—“ her voice fades for a moment, then returns in a wave. “If she came back, would you give up… the people you love here, to have her?”
Bexley
and love doubled is madness
and love doubled is madness
