i swallowed the sun and it burned my tongue and it burned my throat but it couldn't burn away your memory
Silence permeates her ears, her eyes, her consciousness. There is her and there is Michael and there is an ugly roaring and flooding and cracking of more ice statues she's forgotten about already. There is the soft, furious beating of her heart and of his, and then there is his whisper to fill the void, to bring the starlight flaring a little brighter behind them. It is the only sign that she is aware, the only glimpse of how deeply he affects her when her power pulses through her veins, through the starlit lamp and through the room. Paler orbs come to circle him, to dance and play like little spirits, and then they settle upon his brow as a radiant crown so beautiful and terrible.
She bites her lip to hold back more tears she hopes were dried the many moons he was gone. She bites her tongue to keep from lashing out and pushing another one away. Caine's face flashes in her mind, the way she'd offered for him to kill her, the way he'd told her he couldn't and she was just being stupid. Moira is more stupid now than then, she thinks, and it is a thought as soft as a butterfly's wings, accepted and nesting inside with the rest of her sorrows and woes.
It is idiotic and infuriating to still feel when she'd rather be numb, but she knows to be numb would be to become a thing she never wanted. Moira loves her family, but she does not cling to the Tonnerre ways as once she would have to please them. They're rotting and terrible and pull one apart if they cannot stand up to the pressures that would weigh down their shoulders and soul.
No.
She will not be numb.
She will not be stupid.
"I feel like everything is a dream, or maybe some terrible nightmare." she says, removing her teeth from his skin, looking at the indent she made there. Her face is as dry as the crumbs on the counter now, her eyes as bright as the star she's captured for herself and herself alone.
Moira enjoys the way his chin tucks behind her ear too much, the warmth of his breaths a melody on the crest of her neck, letting her know she's not alone. But the phoenix is always alone these days. "Was it worth it?" she asks, no hint of scorn or shame or anger. Where she should be full of passion, brimming with untapped feelings just waiting to be found, there is a void.
Like the dark between the stars, like the crumbling centers of wood caught by fire, there is nothing. And still, she cannot bring herself to pull away, to let go of this dream just yet. Just as she couldn't let herself let go of him after the tavern, after the trip into the forest where she'd put a crystal in her hair and a reminder of what the world could be.
For a moment, she is full of shame for what she has not done. For a moment, she wants to disappear. For a moment, she wants to fulfill that dream of making a brighter future for the children.
Perhaps, in time, the Emissary will leave and do that, too.
Perhaps.
