I wish y’all could see my face. Because it’s particularly cute today and my new headshots from this morning are fantastic and HONESTLY MY FACE IS BETTER THAN MOST OF MY BODY. ♀️
Dean takes his time, running his fingers over the banister of the porch. The white paint is chipping and worn down, but the wood, he can tell, is quality. No splinters, no cracking, no warping. It’s nice. He drags in a deep breath, his senses flooding with the scent of pine trees as the warm early-autumn air blows through them. The sky is clear, save for a couple little puffs of cloud here and there. And as his eyes scan the sky, he waits for it – that impending sense of doom and dread. Even when he’s trying to relax, it’s always there, bubbling beneath the surface. There’s a reason he’s slept with a gun under his pillow for three decades.
But he’s struck with the sudden realization: it’s not there. All he feels is calm and peace. Something he’s never really known.
Well, that’s not true, he silently amends.
He felt peace with Cas.
Frowning, Dean drops his head and closes his eyes. Cas… Fuck, he misses him. He misses everything about him. He misses telling Cas jokes that land like a fucking brick in front of him. He misses the tie that’s always askew. He misses that mess of hair. He misses those eyes Dean can, and often has, get lost in. He misses that trench coat. He misses Cas, plain and simple. And while he feels calm and peaceful here… it does feel like a piece of him is missing. It’s probably not supposed to. Not here. But it does.
It’s comforting to know he escaped the torment of the Empty… but, “Damn it, Cas,” he breathes, wrapping both hands around the banister.
“Hello, Dean.”
Standing suddenly, Dean opens his eyes and whips around. Cas is standing beside the battered screen door, smiling warmly at Dean. “Cas,” he breathes, his eyes wide as he looks him over, like he’s taking inventory of all his favorite things. Messy hair, check; crooked tie, check; trench coat, check; breathtaking eyes, check… Cas, check. “It’s–”
“Yes,” Cas nods. “It’s me.”
Dean surges forward, throwing his arms around him in a crushing hug. He buries his face against Cas’s neck and closes his eyes, breathing him in. It’s another thing he’d previously forgotten to add to his list of things he missed. That clean, earthy smell that was somehow distinctlyCastiel.
When he pulls away, his hand slips down Cas’s arm to his hand, his thumb brushing the inside of Cas’s wrist. He heaves a breath, the line between his brows deepening. “You’re a dick, you know that?” He says suddenly.
Cas blinks in surprise and tilts his head. “I– what?”
Dean purses his lips and shakes his head. “You drop somethin’ like that on me and then just fuck off to the netherworld?”
“I wasn’t in the Netherworld, I was–”
“In the Empty, whatever. You’re still a dick.”
Cas lifts his eyes to the ceiling of the porch, as if the answer to Dean’s outburst is written there. “I still don’t underst–”
“You drop that on me and then you die, and you didn’t give me a chance to say anything.”
“I didn’t think there was anything for you to say.”
Dean scoffs, incredulous. Didn’t think there was anything for him to say? “What show have you been watching, huh?”
“I haven’t been watching television.”
Though outwardly, Dean appears frustrated, he fucking missed this. But something suddenly occurs to him. “Wait.” He shakes his head, those lines between his brows growing deeper. “You really didn’t think I’d have somethin’ to say? You didn’t think I–”
“Reciprocated?” Cas says. He frowns, casting his glance downward. “No, Dean. I didn’t.”
“Well you’re dead wrong.”
One corner of Cas’s lips turn up in a smirk. “I believe we’re both deceased now.”
Scoffing, Dean’s eyebrows shoot up. “Did you just make a joke?”
“Yes,” Cas’s smile widens, “I believe I did.”
“Alright, listen.” Dean grasps the back of Cas’s neck, his fingers brushing up into his hair. There’s no sense of fear or uncertainty welling up inside of him anymore. He’s in Heaven. He gets what he wants. There’s no fear of judgment or self-sacrifice anymore. He’s just gonna fucking go for it. “I love you, Cas. I shoulda said somethin’ a long time ago, but I-I-I was scared, okay? I’m sorry. But–” He cuts himself off and glances out over the farmhouse’s property; the sprawling lawn (that he can’t wait to mow) surrounded by lush trees; the path that leads to the garage that houses Baby. The house he’s always imagined for himself, but always knew wasn’t a possibility. “This is about havin’ peace, right?” His gaze turns back to Cas’s, and he swallows the emotion rising in his throat. “We get forever here.”
“That is the idea, yes.”
Dean licks his lips and takes a step closer. His shoes bump Cas’s, and his hands slips further into the back of Cas’s hair. “Then that means I get forever with you, right?”
Cas is smiling, and he pulls his free hand out of the coat pocket. He grabs a fistful of Dean’s jacket and Dean watches his Adam’s Apple bob as he swallows, Cas’s eyes roaming Dean’s face. “Of course, Dean.”
Dean breathes out in relief. All at once, that feeling that a puzzle piece was askew; the feeling that something was missing dissipates. Forty-one years of sacrifice and loss earned him this: a life of peace with the love of his life – the love that had come completely out of left field and left him breathless. Forty-one years of sacrifice and loneliness and loss earned him the love of a millennia-old angel who thought he was worth something. Worth everything.
He kisses Cas then. It’s soft and slow and gentle. There’s no sense of urgency or fear or desperation behind it. It’s being lovingly handed what he’s always wanted; what he’d always been missing. And, well… he’s in Heaven, so that makes a whole lot of sense.
When they part, Dean keeps his forehead against Cas’s, and they’re both smiling. Finally, Dean rocks back enough to meet Cas’s eyes. He tips his head toward the house and raises a brow. “Wanna come in. Stay a while?” He presses his lips together and shrugs. “I’m thinkin’ maybe forever?”
“I’d like nothing more.” Cas smiles, and Dean feels warmth flooding his chest. In Cas’s smile, Dean feels content. He feels like he’s home. He’s waited his whole life to feel like this. He tried, with Lisa and Ben, but that piece of the puzzle just wasn’t there. He tried with the Bunker, and while he loved that place… there was always just something not quite right. But here, he has Cas. He feels calm. He has no feeling of cosmic obligation or the feeling that he’s running the clock. He has everything he’s ever wanted.
For the first time, and for the rest of time, Dean Winchester is at peace.
Trust is a precious commodity, and one that people would argue that, like respect, should be earned rather than given. There are those that expect to be given that trust unconditionally, in spite of any piling reasons why they should be the last person on the planet to have it. Extenuating circumstances where it mustbe given, for the consequences may be dire otherwise.
In a world where everyone may play with ulterior motive, trust is difficult to give, but oh, so easy to break.
Serena gives off an air to trusting much too easily. A sweet, naïve girl who simply wishes to see the best in people, no matter how much they may be to the contrary. A girl who sees the world through rose-tinted glasses, being either truly blissfully unaware of being taken advantage of, or choosing to live in ignorance. Neither situation paints a pretty picture.
Internally, however she may bury it, Serena questions everyone around her.
She questions their motives, if their intentions are truly in good faith or if there’s some hidden malice. She smiles so brightly as she awaits the dagger in the dark, the knife in the back. She wonders which person will be the one to pick up the knife, to pick up the dagger, and put it to use. She wonders if she has the right to question at all.
She preferred it be her, in all truthfulness.
Having others in high school use her to get to her more extroverted, seemingly more worldly sister. The more atrocious among them using her blooming bisexuality as a weapon against her, the threat of being outed keeping her silent, keeping her small. The knowledge that, at any moment, her world could crumble to pieces driving her further into her own internal world.
Her only rocks in the maelstrom were her sister, Dana, and her high school sweetheart, Nate Walsh.
When she left that high school behind, and started college with a focus on law, Serena felt like she could perhaps breathe a little easier. The fearful girl that questioned everyone around her rested the slightest bit, but still held a firm grip on Serena’s psyche. While she may not be guided by the fear anymore, she still keeps it close, keeping to the belief that even onewrong person may leave her world as little more than ash on her tongue.
Idk why but as a kid I used to get hysterically upset everytime I would imagine a gif of a rotating cow because I could never stop the cow from rotating no matter how hard I tried and I would be crying and no one knew why
lol hey, I know this blog comes off as a “for content/art” blog and I generally intend to keep it that way but this evening the warrior brainworms are back in town and I don’t have many places to share my thoughts for this kinda stuff,
this isn’t an official post or trying to push people to get to agree with me (I am not enough of an elegant speaker). dfnjsdfn read if you want, but don’t feel inclined. I’m not trying to be groundbreaking or anything. I think it’s just a lil vent about how I feel about how squirrelflight as a character is approached
CW: I discuss a little bit of the abuse, but not in detail
I AM so very glad we are past the early 2010s of Warriors amvs for sure at least. Back then “Ashfur did nothing wrong” was a common thing to say and everyone just went along with it, not knowing better from being young teens lol. But man the sexism still sticks and it sucks that Squirrelflight and what she went through is still debated. At least its going in the right direction?? But whew. It’s best to ignore and just go along my day, but seeing a random commenter or even someone who has Ashfur apologist as a name still bothers me more than I want LOL
It’s hard to figure out how to consume a book series which… is pretty badly written and has many many many loose ends and issues, and I don’t really wanna police or judge on how people consume stuff. (As long as you’re not being a Freak. This is not a proship defense post get out) BUT I GUESS sometimes the way Ashfur is still perceived makes me uneasy? Like don’t get me wrong. he sounds like a pretty cool villain when he possessed Bramble, and while I personally don’t feel its true to his character to have?? Done whatever he did in the later books (I have . only read One chapter of ALITM and done no other warriors reading in a WHILE) it sounds kinda cool as a premise ig. And like many situations its easy to twist characters into their fanon, I think it’s just.. a little. Just a little. upsetting to have Ashfur to be seen as Such a Cool Character ™ or whatever.
I think it really stems from the fact that. Ashfur’s decisions and actions all start from the fact he was the rejected love interest that went too far after Squirrelflight very maturely told him that she wasn’t interested. Just because of this, he assists in a murder, threatens Squirrel’s family and even after death seeks revenge and Succeeds when he targets Squirrelflight again.
So far I don’t think there’s been any levity or relief from Squirrelflight having to go through grief or sadness and it really sucks at this point. I think the thing drives me insane is that Squirrel’s situation of getting such a backlash over a rejection is. Something that still constantly happens IRL. And Squirrelflight is almost Never acknowledged as a victim. Not by the other characters, and I don’t think the authors really grasped the weight of her situation they wrote her in either. It’s exhausting, really. I think i should really focus my blame the Warriors writing team for not approaching it better, but as someone who mostly hangs around for the fandom, it does feel like it’s sometimes thrown around too lightly :(
This is probably just a nitpick, and I’m not harshly criticising participants, hosts or artists of any kind who create the content, but a lot of AU or just, general projects and videos I see revolving squirrel is often about the miserable events of her life, either twisting them maybe to be Worse as a bad end or just. Highlighting them.
I don’t blame anybody tho lol, it’s not like the source material has given much else but then again, we’ve had AUs and explorations of other background characters that end with brighter outcomes, so what’s stopping that from happening to Squirrel? It’s sometimes just a bit sad that there isn’t much chance to give anything else JDNFJNDFN
animal media huh. lets authors write dark things in Childrens books. And get away with poorly writing dark and sensitive topics.
it has Arrived. the grand angst piece of suffering i’ve been working on since the finale. part 1 of 2. more suffering to follow as soon as I’ve written it. enjoy.
Title:Let Me Back In - Chapter 1 ‘As You Are Mine’
Warning:Spoilers for episode 1x08 of the show. Mature rating for dark themes/content. Moiraine is in a fairly deep depression and is dissociating quite a lot. She’s sunk very deeply into an apathetic torpor and it may be uncomfortable/unsettling to read - be aware and be safe if this is a potential problem.
Summary: Post 1x08 - after what happened at the Eye, Moiraine is struggling to cope. Lan has given her time and space to grieve, but after almost a week of apathy and with no signs of improvement, he finally attempts to reach out to her and encourage her to let him help.
Teaser:‘ Today had brought a slight change in her, though he did not think it was for the better. Staring blankly into space without seeming to see anything. Head all that was visible beneath the mountain of blankets she seemed to be trying to drown herself within. Somehow, the Wheel had finally managed to break Moiraine Sedai. It had made her into a small, fragile thing, a thing she would have despised a week ago. Had he not been able to hear the gentle sounds of her breathing in the silence of the room, he’d have believed her a corpse.’
The healers of Fal Dara, talented though they were, had been at a complete loss as to what to do for his Aes Sedai.
When he and Moiraine had returned from the Eye, he had been carrying her for half a day. Her legs had given out from under her without warning in the middle of the Blight and she had been unable to move. Where before she would have clung to every rotted branch and twisted trunk to drag herself on, and stubbornly clawed herself out on her stomach if forced, against all sense or reason, she had simply huddled on the ground, eyes closed, expression bleak. There had been not a word of protest uttered when he had lifted her into his arms to carry her back.
In the week since, she had not improved. He had stayed with her as much as he had been able to, only leaving to fetch things for her. At first she had argued against it, insisting that he do more important things, that they were not bonded now, and he was no longer obligated to assist her. He had ignored her, and after the first day, she had fallen silent. Not because she had changed her mind; simply, he was sure, because she was too exhausted to argue.
None of the healers he had consulted had made the slightest difference to her. Even Nynaeve had been taken aback by the state of her when she had finally consented to visit and examine her after Lan all but begged her. Eventually, after many examinations and concerned conferences, the best they could recommend had been bed rest. For the first time since he had known her, likely the first time in her life, Moiraine had heeded that suggestion. She had not left her chambers, or her bed, in almost a week.
This was so terrifyingly unlike the woman he knew. The woman who had been stubbornly outrunning trollocs on horseback as a deadly poison coursed through her veins, killing her, mere weeks ago. More than once he’d wondered if perhaps the Dark One had not somehow taken his Moiraine at the Eye and replaced her with this false shadow. Yet every time he met her eyes he knew that it was her. He saw in them their history reflected back at him, the life that they had shared together. That, and the mirror of the pain he felt every waking moment at the loss of their bond.
Light knew she was entitled to break, to utterly shatter, after what she had been through. He did not blame her for that at all. If she had been anyone else he would not have been surprised if they had refused to rise from bed for three months. But she was not anyone else. She was Moiraine.
As long as he had known her she had been a woman of action. A woman who did things. A woman with an almost compulsive need to do things. They had not stopped for twenty years. Not for rest, or pleasure, or grief. The Wheel had assigned them a task, and she would see it done, or see herself broken in the attempt. When she had faced obstacles, or grief, or pain, it had only increased her fervour and her drive, as she pushed through and ignored her own hurts. That had worried him, too, but it had been familiar, and something he had learned how to handle. Now she seemed content to simply sleep through what looked like the end of days and he had no idea how to respond.
Standing guard over her rooms was starting to feel more and more like he was standing vigil at her wake; nothing to protect now but a corpse and a memory.
She had slept more in the past week than he thought she had in the year preceding it. Except when the nightmares woke her. Then she would scream herself hoarse until he came to her, and held her, and swore upon his mother’s name that she was safe. Once the panic faded and reality asserted itself once more, she seemed to decide that it was worse than whatever she had seen that made her thrash and claw at the world as if her very blood was being boiled in her veins. Then she would sink back into those twisted dreams with a hollow resignation.
Lan had allowed her that weakness. Mother knew she took little enough rest, even this toxic almost self-destructive kind. Yet each time he watched her succumb to that again, he felt her die. It was a quiet death, a surrendering to an abyss deeper and darker than any he had ever claimed, but that was its purpose. He had felt it before, years ago, when his grief had driven him to the Blight to end his war with the Shadow once and for all. Not the end that he wanted, nor even the end he deserved, but the only one he had been able to see. That was when Moiraine had found him. She had been the flame he had needed to lead him from the void he had lost himself within. Now he had to be her light, and help to guide her home.
Fear, both for her, and the lingering roiling of it within him that could only have been calmed by feeling her once more through the bond, had him staying in her chambers with her. There was a small room attached to hers that he could retreat to for privacy or sleep, though he had sought little of either. He did not want to leave her alone.
Today had brought a slight change in her, though he did not think it was for the better. Staring blankly into space without seeming to see anything. Head all that was visible beneath the mountain of blankets she seemed to be trying to drown herself within. Somehow, the Wheel had finally managed to break Moiraine Sedai. It had made her into a small, fragile thing, a thing she would have despised a week ago. Had he not been able to hear the gentle sounds of her breathing in the silence of the room, he’d have believed her a corpse.
Unable to bear sitting there watching her like that, he had left to fetch her something to eat. As he returned, he knocked on the door, not wishing to startle her, then cautiously pushed it open. He had done his best to make the sparse fortress chambers feel warm and comfortable, somewhere safe for her to recover. There was a large fire roaring in the hearth, candles scattered around to create small pools of light everywhere, banishing shadows where paranoia or fear could hide. He had even found a small bunch of flowers and set them in a vase by the window. Yet with the cold darkness that seeped from her, it may as well have been a graveyard he had left her in.
As he entered the room again, his eyes went straight to the bed where he knew she would be. She was as he had left her. They might have replaced her body with a doll for all the change in her. A doll with too pale skin, and too large eyes, who had wasted away to a fragment of the woman he loved in mere days.
Forcing himself to push that thought aside, he smiled warmly instead. She had no response to his smile, or his return, and though he had not expected anything else, and knew it would have been unfair to do so, his heart still withered away a little more.
Stepping towards her, he lifted the items in his hands to draw attention to them. A small plate of food, and a platter with a tea-set upon it, one steaming cup already poured for her. She looked at it, then at him, with lifeless eyes. After a moment’s pause, she nodded vaguely in acknowledgement, jerking her head at the table beside her. He took the hint, and set them down there, easily within reach. When he lifted the cup and tried to hand it to her, she simply rolled over again, turning her back to him and pulling the covers more tightly around her body, as though seeking to protect herself from him.
Lan almost left. He almost let her give in to this. She deserved that. Mother preserve him, but she deserved it. Not only for this, but for all that the Wheel had asked her to endure in its weavings. How could he push her when she was like this? How could he ask more of her when she had already given everything? How could he demand that she be strong again when she had spent her life being stronger than it was possible for any person to be? How could he whip her like a horse that had run for a thousand leagues, then a thousand more, and finally dropped from exhaustion?
The answer was as simple as it was harsh: this was killing her. Surely as rot from the Blight taking root within a heart, or the trolloc poison that had almost claimed her after leaving the Two Rivers. It was killing her, and he could not simply stand by and let that happen.
So instead he sat himself firmly on the edge of her bed. Not wanting to be too close and crowd her, he settled down by her feet, which she had tucked up against her chest, one on top of the other. Gently, he rested a hand on top of them, a gentle pat, to remind her that he was there. The lines around her eyes deepened for a fraction of a second, before they were smoothed by apathy once more. Other than that she did not react to him choosing to stay, or to the contact. She just lay there.
“You’ve barely eaten anything since the Eye,” he murmured, his tone very carefully light, as though merely commenting on the weather, with no sense of chastisement or judgement in his words.
There was silence for a long time. When she finally spoke, the sound of her voice made him wonder if he might not have preferred that.
“Really?”
That was not Moiraine. Surely. That hoarse, toneless rasp of sound, utterly devoid of her music, that could not be his Moiraine. Somehow it was. It was all that he had left of her. A last, feeble, desperate thread of her Pattern that he had to use to weave her back into the woman that she was. He held onto it for all that he was, and swore that nothing short of his death could force him to let it go.
“Really,” he agreed very gently, for there had been no sneer or derision in her words. They had simply sounded lost.
For a moment, he thought she might rebuke him for the faint note of pity in his voice that had slipped through before he could stop it. For a moment he hoped that she would. If only so he could find something in her that told him someone still lived behind those empty, haunted eyes.
“How can you tell?” she muttered, still sounding blank and confused, as though she had received a sharp blow to the head and it was disorientating her, “Without the bond,” she added, as if to clarify her uncertainty.
She sounded so small to him, all of a sudden, her voice so blank and confused. She had asked him that as she might have asked him how he knew that there would be rain later. Each word seemed to cost her a great effort to force out as well, as though she had to forcibly drag it from a deep pit of cloying toxic mud found within the Blight.
“I do have eyes, you know,” he joked lightly, patting her feet, a feeble attempt at humour, which felt as welcome here as it might have at a funeral pyre.
She nodded vaguely, the small movement seeming to sap the last of her energy, leaving her looking as tired as though he had just made her walk back to the Two Rivers again without pause or rest. Finally she looked up at him and actually met his eyes.
“Thank you for the tea, Lan,” she said in a rigid, mechanical voice that was too refined to be truly her.
It was the voice of Lady Damodred, the polished noblewoman who fell reflexively back upon politeness and courtly manners. Not her at all. Just a thing that could prop her up and puppet her. A face that could pretend to be her for long enough to tell him what she thought he wanted to hear then be rid of him.
“Now if you would please go,” she said, in that same voice, one that she had not used with him for years now.
Her body, already slight and somehow frail, for all the strength he knew it belied, seemed to crumple further, melting down into the bedding until she was barely distinguishable, in the semi-darkness she kept her chambers in.
From that heap of fabric and despair that she had collapsed into, a final whisper reached him, hopeless and limp, “I would like to be alone.”
Lan hesitated, teetering on the edge, feeling like a boy in his first battle, having to steel his nerves and brace himself as he prepared to leap into the fray for the first time. His courage almost failed him, as it had on that day. Years ago, he had told Moiraine that, his great secret, and his great shame. Al’Lan Mandragoran, Last Lord of the Seven Towers, Dai Shan of Malkier, had almost fallen to cowardice before he had ever been risen to legend. One of the most renowned warriors of his time had almost never seen the sun, swallowed by the shadows of fear. Yet today, as then, he found his strength from somewhere, and did not shy from his duty, no matter how painful or how much it terrified him.
Taking a deep breath, he remained sitting firmly on the end of her bed, and shook his head, “No,” he told her, with all the authority of a general giving orders to his soldiers.
Slowly, those words seemed to dawn upon her. More slowly still, she turned her head to look at him. Her eyes gleamed in the dark, for a moment seeming solid black, consumed by shadow.
“Excuse me?” she said, voice as cold as a winter snow, with all the harsh disbelief of a queen being questioned upon her throne.
“I am not leaving you alone right now, Moiraine,” he told her, the words calm, direct, and simple. Though there was a slight tremble to his voice that he knew she, and she alone, would hear.
At this, she actually sat up, which he would have taken as a hopeful sign, had her eyes not narrowed, her face twisting with contempt and something he could have called disgust.
“Do you really think that you can help me?” she hissed at him with derision, her voice sounding like the twisted, corrupting whispers of Machin Shin, also seeking to rend his soul from him. “Do you think that you can protect me from this? Do you think that your sword can shield me from the agony that I am in?” she sneered, an awful dark mirror of the woman that he loved, “Do you think that you can even begin to understand what I am experiencing at this moment? Let alone do anything to stop it?”
She sounded almost pitying when she said those last words. As though she looked at him and saw a naive, ignorant fool who thought to comfort her with empty words and false promises of hope.
Perhaps he was that fool, for he did still hope for her, had to still hope for her. But he was not so much a fool that he did not see her own foolishness, her attempts to cut him off, to protect him from this pain, as she had tried to protect him from the Blight. This time she also sought a way to sink further into her pain and darkness, as it called to her like a toxic lover, dragging her further into misery and despair. Away from him. This prickly wounded creature was all he had left of her, and he would not let her go, no matter the damage it did to him.
“No,” he murmured simply, “I don’t. I don’t understand what you’ve lost,” he told her, knowing that he would never be able to even come close, “I don’t understand what’s happening to you. The bond-” he broke off, closing his eyes at the visceral reminder of it.
The absence of the bond felt like a physical wound. As though someone had hollowed out a section of his soul with a blade and left the wound open and weeping. A constant source of distress and pain, without any prospect of healing. Even with that, he knew he could not begin to imagine what she was going through. She was suffering the severing of hundreds of bonds, thousands, to something far deeper and more consuming than he. He would not diminish or minimise her pain by pretending to understand it. His role was not to understand, it was to simply be here with her.
“I miss you,” he whispered, gently tapping his heart, “But even enduring our broken bond, I know that I cannot even begin to imagine what this feels like for you,” he told her gently. Then he reached out and rested a hand on her hip, the swell of it something of her he could find beneath the covers, “But I will stay with you anyway,” he swore, as solemn and binding as the first oath he had given her twenty years before, when she had taken him as Warder. “I will not let you push me away again,” he said softly.
A deep pang of guilt and sorrow lurched in him as he remembered the last time she had manipulated him into leaving her alone. So different, the warm, gentle encouragements to be with his adoptive family, and with Nynaeve. Part of it had been a ruse to allow her to slip away and spare him the horrors of the Eye. But part of it had been genuine, a want for him to feel happiness and find comfort in others. Yet it had been intended to have the same outcome as the visceral, seething venom she had spat at him now. This time he saw what she was doing, and he would not let it happen. A warrior knew never to take a wound in the same place twice, for they learned how to guard against such from their first failure. He would not fail her again.
Finding her eyes, watching him, distant and unknowable as the furthest, coldest star, he held that frozen, unwelcoming gaze, and said quietly, “You can hit me, and scream at me, and curse my ancestors back to the creation of the Wheel itself.” She swallowed tightly and turned away, a flicker of shame in her, but he went on, needing to make it absolutely clear, “You can insult me, and deride me, and use each of my flaws to burn a little more of me away. You can do all that you may think of, Moiraine, and more, but I will not leave you this time,” he murmured, shaking his head flatly.
He did not know what he expected of her in response to that. Apathy. Or scorn. Or even anger. He might even have welcomed further rage and frustration. The derision she had met him with had hurt, but it had been something, it had been more than what he’d seen from her since they had returned from the Eye.
Nothing in his life had ever prepared him for her to look him straight in the eye, her gaze piercing like an arrow to his soul, and ask in a fragile, broken little voice, “Why not?”
The question felt so vast to him. As though she had asked him to describe and define every drop of rain in a thunderstorm. How could he tell her all of the reasons that he loved her? How could he even begin to explain what she meant to him? How could he answer her without simply recounting every moment they had spent together over the last twenty years? How could she even ask him, having shared all of that with him?
In the end, he simply said the first thing that had come to him, the honesty and simplicity of it striking a chord within his heart.
“I am your Warder,” he murmured with quiet sincerity, meaning every inch of it.
Every word spoke of a far deeper aspect of his self, forged from fire, and light, on the day that they had bonded. Protecting and guiding her on the quest they shared had become such an integral part of who he was, he did not think he would recognise the man he would have become without her. If indeed he had become anything at all, and not simply died as another nameless, faceless casualty of the Blight. Everything that came with being a Warder, the pride, the honour it was to be bonded to her, the trust that they shared, the commitment to one another. And that he was hers, her Warder, her friend, the other half of her soul, his Pattern the perfect mirror for hers.
The things she had hurled at him in a final, desperate attempt to be rid of him seemed to have utterly drained her of the little energy she had managed to cling to for today. Now she slumped in the bed once more, looking haunted and harrowed, as if she had been fighting off a dire illness for years, and sensed it in the final stages of its grisly work. She looked so frail, so small, so utterly unlike herself that it was all he could do not to pull her into his arms, and hold her, and refuse to let her go for fear that she would slip away from him.
“You cannot be my Warder any longer, Lan” she said, her voice flat and distant as the look in her eyes as she gazed past him at something he could not see, and could no longer feel.
He felt his heart lurch, for all that he knew she was not herself at the moment. He had failed her. He had let this happen to her. He had let her go, alone, without him. If she did not want him, did not trust him now-
“To be a Warder you must have an Aes Sedai,” she said, and he dragged himself from his own emotional turmoil to focus on her, on what she was saying to him. She met his eyes and, with a sad, ironic little smile, she told him softly, “I am not an Aes Sedai any more.”
Her small, flat voice was such a contrast to the heaving, violent roiling of his emotions. Emotions that she did not share, but must still see in him. She had to swallow tightly to stop herself from breaking, eyes squeezed tight, face twisting in a grimace of pain once more. He had seen this woman endure all sorts of agony through their years together. Their road had been dangerous, and despite his best efforts, she had been beaten and burned, stabbed and poisoned, frozen and sick, manipulated and plotted against, and he had never seen pain in her like this. Never.
As she spoke, her hand clenched on the blankets around her, a nervous habit that she had. It was her left hand. The hand on which she should have worn her Great Serpent ring. She had already removed it. That, more than anything else, was what finally snapped the last chain around his self-control.
“I don’t care,” he growled, a sudden anger rising up in him at the sight.
Shifting closer to her, he took her hand in his, and laced their fingers together, filling in the gaps where her ring should have sat with his own strength.
“Do you truly believe that I think so little of you as that?“ he said, a muscle jumping in his jaw as he clenched his teeth around his anger, "Do you think that my word is so lightly given, and so easily broken, that I will turn my back on you simply because you cannot channel at the moment?” he asked, unable to keep the taut pain from his voice. “Do you think all that has bound me to you these last twenty years, that has made me risk my life, and dedicate myself to you, and love you more than I have ever loved another soul, has been a simple weave of Spirit and nothing more?”
She shook her head, her eyes closing with a sense of despair and exhaustion. Such exhaustion that he felt it, even without their bond. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to lie down beside her, and close his own eyes, and not open them until the Mother claimed his soul and took him away from all of this. He clamped down on that feeling and rammed a blade into its heart, mastering himself. She did not have the strength to fight it, so he had to fight it for both of them.
“I cannot give you what is necessary to make you my Warder,” she said, forcing the cold logic from her mouth like bile, but forcing it all the same, “You no longer have the gifts that come with such a connection that have you allowed you to do all of those things,” she said, “We are not Warder and Aes Sedai now, Lan. We are just two broken people who cannot fit together anymore.”
Her mouth trembled, but her voice was steady. Like a machine. A thing that simply repeated what it was bidden to, lacking any heart, or conviction, or feeling at all. From anyone it would have been unsettling, but from her? This woman who had always been so sure, who could cause entire armies to cower from her with but a single glare? It was more horrifying than anything he had seen from the Shadow after decades at war with it.
“You deserve a true bond, and a true Aes Sedai. I can give you neither,” she told him, voice restrained and matter-of-fact.
She spoke as though it was as simple as that, as though all this was for her was a matter of Tower traditions and technicalities. As though he meant nothing to her at all except in his use as her Warder. He knew, in his heart, that she was not herself at the moment. Their quest had been paid with a heavy toll of blood, and tears, and ashes, and had cost them dearly. It had cost her everything.
Everything but the life that still clung to her, making more mockery of the word with each day. Lacking the bond, missing the comfort of her soul gently brushing against his as he would miss his sword hand, he knew she was experiencing that a hundredfold. This was not her. He knew that, yet he could not stop the flare of anger that burned through him, hot as a fresh slice into his skin, at these cold, empty words she offered him as he fought with everything he had to hold on to her.
“What of the last twenty years, Moiraine?” he breathed, clenching his hand into a fist as he fought to keep that fury from spilling over into his voice. “What of the life we have shared that binds us to one another?” he demanded, teeth clenched, and this time he was not as successful at keeping his own emotions tamped down. “The history The respect. The trust. The love that we have for one another. Does that mean nothing to you? Do I mean nothing to you?”
She looked stricken, the first flicker of true emotion he had seen on her face since he had entered the room. It was masked a moment later as something reasserted control. With a flare of terror inside him, he realised that he did not know, could not tell without their bond, if that thing was her iron self-discipline, or the dark hopelessness he saw drowning the heart of her each time he met her eyes.
“I am saying these things because of what you still mean to me,” she breathed, looking exasperated that she had to explain, that he didn’t just understand. “I cannot give you anything anymore, Lan. If you are injured I cannot Heal you. If you grow sick I cannot help you. I cannot fight beside you anymore. I cannot channel. I cannot sense Shadowspawn. I cannot do anything for you now.”
“Do you love me?” he asked softly, reaching out and taking her hand in his once more.
“Of course,” she said, sounding strangely aggravated beneath the thick undertow of apathy that threatened to drag her away from him at any moment, “That is why I am-”
“That is enough,” he interrupted quietly, “That is enough for me.”
“No it is not,” Moiraine said, pulling her hand from his and shaking her head, anger flashing in her eyes, as though she thought that he was patronising her and lying to them both, “I cannot give you any reason to love me anymore, I-”
“You are mine,” he said, words rippling with barely controlled fierceness and pride, cutting her off before she spiralled any more into the toxic logic she had been raised with in Cairhien, and lost sight of who she was, and what they were to one another, “I did not swear my oath to the White Tower, or to your Ajah, nor even to an Aes Sedai. Not in my heart,” he added, when he noted the slight crease between her brows that indicated a frown.
Smiling for her, he squeezed her hand firmly, then, with deliberate gentleness, laced their fingers together. She allowed it, though she looked down at where they were now joined with an oddly blank look, as though she was watching him speak to another person, as though she was barely here with him at all now. He only held on all the more tightly for that.
“None of those things mattered to me when I accepted your offer to become your Warder,” he told her softly, “I swore to you. Not Lady Moiraine Damodred of Cairhien, and not Moiraine Sedai of the White Tower. To you. To Moiraine,” he said, praying that the brief spark he had seen in her eyes at those words had been real and not a fabrication of his desperate mind. “I would have given it to that woman had she been a beggar on the streets who had never so much as heard of the One Power before. I would have given it to you if you’d had nothing to offer me but the speech you made about finding the Dragon to protect this world.”
He still remembered it. Every word of what she had said to him on that day when he’d been determined to die forgotten in a war he fought alone remained branded into him. If they ever cut into his body, they would find those things she had told him that had changed his life so profoundly he could not be the man he was without them carved into the very bones of him.
“I bound myself to you not because you could do it with a weave of Spirit, but because of your heart, and your courage, and your grit,” he smiled, even as tears started to blur his view of her as he added, the words choked with emotion, “And because of your foolish, reckless, stubborn refusal to believe that you could not make the world what you thought it could and should be.”
His tears fell at that, silent, and controlled. But a part of him wanted her to see, wanted her to know how deeply he felt all of this. Reaching out, he cupped her face in his hand. She turned away a little, as though overwhelmed by what she saw in him, but also pressed unconsciously into his gentle warmth.
Softening his hand against her, he said, “You have endured something unbearable,” he murmured, “Something it is incredible you have simply survived. Something that has changed everything for you, and I know that. I do,” he said, for even though he could not begin to understand what she was experiencing, he could empathise with all he knew of her, and all they had shared before. “But I need you to know that it changes nothing for me in how I feel about you. I still love you,” he said, as simply as she had spoken, but with such a depth of feeling that he felt a tremble run through her body. Taking a deep breath he continued, saying what he felt he had to say to her now, “I still trust you. I still wish to protect you, and be at your side until the end,” Leaning in, he touched his forehead gently to hers, and said quietly, fiercely, “I am still so proud to be your friend, and your partner, and your Warder.”
“Lan-” she started, sounding tired and wan, but he shook his head, not yet done with what he had to say to her.
"My oath to you will bind us together as long as the Wheel wills us both to live,” he said firmly, a hand cradling the back of her head, keeping her with him, “Whether or not you can channel. Whether or not you can stand. Whether or not you can speak, or think, or feel,” he swore, fingers tangling through her hair with a tremble that gave some relief to the fraught intensity of his emotions. “As long as you live, I will be with you,” he promised her. Breathing shaky, he went on, a little more feeling slipping through his restraint with each word as he breathed, “If you lose everything that you are, and everything that you were, you will never lose this. You will never lose me,” he swore, needing her to know that, needing to know that she would have more success in trying to push aside the mountains than him, “If there comes a time when you cannot even remember my name, you will still know that I am yours. As you are mine.”
She swallowed tightly, throat working as she slowly pulled away from his touch. Shaking her head faintly, she stared past him, past the room, out into something that he could not see, and could no longer feel from her. An unconscious tremor ran through her and her lips twitched. For a moment she wavered, the walls she had placed around herself, between them, with him on the side of the rest of the world, not hers began to crumble. For a moment he thought that he had finally broken through the draining void that was consuming her day by day. Then all at once she shut down on him completely.
“I do not want to be yours,” she said numbly.
The words might have stung more sharply than if she had slapped him, had her voice not been so dead and cold as she spoke them. She went on, words painfully empty, as if she were reciting lines for a play she didn’t believe or even understand, but had to simply get out.
“I do not want to be anyone’s,” she mumbled, in the same mechanical tone, “I do not want to be needed, or wanted, or asked for. I do not want to be strong. I do not want to pretend that I care, or that I can help, or that I can do anything,” her voice was still clear, the words sharply defined, but it made stones seem soft and warm as a thick blanket. “I do not want to be-” she stumbled slightly, then shook her head and said, eyes closed, “I do not want to be.”
“Moiraine-” he croaked, reaching out, but she drew her hand away, the motion casual as though it had been accidental, but he knew better.
“Please just leave me alone, Lan,” she said coldly, sounding so tired as she sank back down onto the bed, pulling the covers up almost over her head, as though she could drown herself in them, “Please,” she added, the word near swallowed by her exhaustion, “Please go.”
She almost broke him. As no wound and no war ever had, or ever could. This woman came closer to destroying him in that moment than anything he had ever known. Without ever trying to, she dug her fingers into the cracks that lined his soul, nails biting in deep, as she almost rent him apart. She almost broke him. But she did not. Because she still needed him, as he still needed her, and he knew that if he left her now, he would lose her, with no hope of ever bringing her back to him.
“I cannot do that, Moiraine,” he said, straightening himself, his voice formal and direct, which seemed to come close to unsettling her as she shifted slightly in place. “I will not do it,” he added, bowing his head slightly in a gesture of respect, but holding her eyes, refusing to back down. “Please do not ask it of me again,” he murmured, his expression a mask of calm resolve, one he might wear before stepping onto a doomed battlefield.
Her whole body seemed to sag against the pillows as she sighed heavily, diminishing her already fragile frame even further. Lowering her head, hers a gesture of defeat, not resolve, she closed her eyes again and hunched away from him, withdrawing even further into her tangle of fabrics.
“What do you want from me, Lan?” she asked in a hoarse, hollow whisper that begged him to tell her so she could give it to him and finally be rid of him.
He wanted to reach for her, but knew in his heart that she would not accept it, and would only pull away. Yet his need to touch her, to connect with her, was suddenly so strong that, for a moment, he thought that he might have a sense of what it was to be her. To have this thing she should have held closest and dearest be out of her reach, rejecting her at every turn.
So he controlled himself, though his voice still held a faint quiver to it as he said quietly,“I want you to let me back in.”
“I have told you that I can’t,” she snapped, her eyes squeezing more tightly shut, her mouth clenched around a snarl, a burst of anger escaping for just a moment. Then she leashed it once more, pulled it back in and buried it deep within the graveyard she had become, haunted by a woman she could no longer be. Taking a deep breath, she continued, her voice that awful, flat recitation once more, “There is nothing that I can do about our bond-”
“I am not talking about the bond,” he interrupted softly, “I’m just talking about you. You’re pulling away from everyone, from me. You’re putting up your walls, and hiding yourself behind them,” he said, she huddled in more deeply to her blankets, as though expecting chastisement or harsh words, “That’s alright,” he said gently, waiting until she hesitantly met his eyes again before he continued, “If that is what you feel you must do in order to survive this then you should do it. But do not shut me out,” he begged her, emotion constricting his throat again as he reached for her, the movement dying halfway through, unable to bear her pulling away again. His hand hovered between them, reaching for her, but halted by those walls she shielded herself with, “Let me come with you this time,” he said, mouth tightening as he worked to control himself.
There was silence for a long time. Yet in this one he sensed consideration from her, rather than utter hopelessness. He gave her time, sitting as patiently as he could, touching the void within himself for comfort.
Finally she spoke, her voice hoarse and unsteady, "I do not know how to do that,” she said shakily, sounding uncertain, which was not a thing he was used to hearing from her. Even when she had felt uncertain within their bond, she had always projected a resolute, unwavering confidence to the world beyond. “I do not know how to share this with you when you do not feel as I feel,” she croaked, “Without the bond, I-”
Lan placed a hand on her side, quieting her, and encouraging her to look at him. When she did, he nodded, softening his expression, the flames of his previous flare of anger utterly extinguished now. He rubbed his hand gently back and forth, savouring the feel of her beneath it, trying to soothe her, to coax her back to him.
“You think that because we do not have the bond at the moment that I do not feel what you feel?“ he asked her gently, meeting her eyes and giving her a soft, sad smile, "You think that I don’t feel this pain with you?” he breathed, shaking his head, “This grief? This awful, screaming emptiness that is taking over you day by day?”
She floundered like a woman drowning, and he reached out, finding her hand where it was buried in her blankets and anchoring her to him. She held him back, thumb brushing absently over the spot between his thumb and forefinger, as she often did. The familiarity of it made his heart convulse within his chest. She was still in there. His Moiraine. Still fighting. Still trying. She was just so, so tired.
"Your losses are mine, remember?” he breathed, nodding encouragingly for her to continue.
A soft little sigh escaped her, and she closed her eyes, looking so exhausted and almost resigned. But she managed to look up at him again, and finished the thought, murmuring faintly, “And mine yours.”
“So let this be ours,“ he said, pulsing his fingers around hers like a heartbeat, reminding her that he was there, and so was she, "Our burden. To carry together as we always have.”
Moiraine hesitated, a slight frown making that line appear between her brows as it always did. She grappled with something it killed him not to feel through their bond. Yet he sensed that she was not trying to push him away again, so he gave her his silence and let her work through it herself.
“I- I don’t know how,” she said at last, a slight shake in her head as she continued, “It sounds ridiculous,” she muttered, frown deepening, “But I’ve gotten so used to you being inside my head, almost knowing what I think before I think it that I- I’m not sure how to find a way to share this with you without the bond,” she murmured, a faint look of desperate fear in her eyes, as though afraid that without the bond she had lost the relationship they had shared.
Lan had struggled with that himself. They had spent so long bonded together, their souls perfect mirrors for the other, their bodies sometimes acting more like limbs of a whole than two separate beings. They had often gone days without needing to utter a word to each other while they travelled, the bond giving them all the companionship and connectedness that they needed. Without that, having to interact with her as he did anyone else, had made him feel clumsy and unsure, like trying to fight after losing far too much blood.
He coaxed her to sit up, which she did, then he held her hand again, stroking her knuckles with his thumb, the way he often did.
“Just talk to me,“ he said gently, "Whatever you are thinking, whatever you are feeling, whatever words are spinning around inside that head of yours, just say them out loud for me to hear.”
“None of my thoughts make any sense at the moment,” she muttered, shaking her head and adding absently, “Not even to me.”
“That’s alright,” he told her, “Honestly I would be worried if they did,” he smiled and added, “Besides, half the time your grand thoughts made no sense to me even with our bond,” she caught his eye, and her mouth twitched in an attempt at a reciprocal smile. His softened, the humour melting away and leaving behind warm reassurance as he said quietly, “Give them to me anyway.”
She considered for a long moment, clearly struggling with herself. It had been a long time since she’d had to try and articulate her feelings; he had always been able to feel them, and generally interpret them. With others she had never even tried. The only other person she trusted enough was Siuan, and Siuan could read her almost as well as Lan could.
“I think- I think that this must be what madness is like,” she whispered finally. Her tone was still horribly flat and distant, but she was talking, and he did his best to listen to her words, and not focus on the awful way she said then, “I can still feel it, you know. I can still feel it. It’s there,” she murmured, her eyes glassy, a hand raising instinctively, “It’s right there. But I cannot touch it. It calls to me…But now it calls in a language that I no longer understand. And my tongue has been torn out so that I cannot answer,” she rasped, staring past him at that endless void even he could not know. It was her mouth that was moving, forming around the words, but it felt so horrifyingly as though she was merely a puppet, something else speaking with her voice, emotionless and empty, as though this was happening to someone else, “It reaches for me, begging, and pleading for me to take it but I can’t. It is so close. And I should be able to touch it. I know that I should. Yet I can’t. So it is both real, and not real, all at once. There and not there. Mine and not mine at all,” she blinked and turned to him, but her eyes were devoid of anything familiar for him to connect to, and she did not seem to see him at all as she murmured, “I do not know how to live like this. It is awful. It is horrifying. It is-” she broke off, and a part of him was glad, because the way she said those things was so unsettling it made his skin crawl. There was no emotion, still, her voice was hollow and faint, almost matter-of-fact, and it terrified him.
She hunched away from him, and he instinctively shifted closer to her in response. Reaching out, he rubbed her back in big, broad strokes, pressing against her and trying to bring her what little comfort he could.
"I know,” he whispered, forcing himself to speak, to break the horrible lingering silence even as his heart and throat both tightened around a new knot of grief for her, “I know it is. I am so sorry.”
“Everything has been taken from me, Lan,” she said, swaying in place, voice so hollow he almost believed that to be true, “The Dragon. This mission of ours. Siuan. The Source. You.”
“Hey,” he breathed, cupping her cheek in his hand, she turned away, not seeming to deliberately pull from his grasp, not even seeming to notice he had been there at all. Face working, emotion choking the words, he took her chin between two fingers and gently turned her back to him, unable to say this without looking in her eyes as he did, “You still have me,” he breathed, “I am not going anywhere. And Siuan is still yours, waiting for you, as she always has, and always will. We still have work to do, hm?”
Those words did not seem to register with her either. Her eyes stared blankly out of the window as she sat, drawing deeper and deeper within herself.
"How could he do this to me?” she murmured, and she did not sound outraged.
Her voice did not burn with justifiable fury, and loathing. It sounded almost confused. As though she was musing idly on how they had managed to take a wrong turn from one village to the next. Horror twisted in his gut as she went on, blinking a little, mildly confused, no more.
“How could he take it from me?” she asked, her face flickering with uncertainty as she looked a little lost now, “How could he take me from myself?” she mumbled slowly, eyelids fluttering rapidly, voice fading away to almost nothing, disconnected and unreal, as though sourceless, echoing from a distant void.
Head cocked slightly to one side, her eyes darkening more and more with each moment that passed, he watched as she silently crumbled like a novice shield wall before a cavalry charge. She did not scream, or weep, or beat her fists against the world in rage. That was not her. Even when she broke down, she did it quietly, and subtly, so that no-one could tell. But he had seen this from her before in their time together. Not often, she had always forced herself to be too strong, but on occasion, and he blessed those times now, for he knew what to do for her to help.
Gathering her in close, Lan cradled her against his chest, feeling as though he was clutching her broken corpse, for all the response she gave him. That had been a frequent nightmare of late for him, sleeping and waking. Finding her at the Eye, lifeless and dead, lost without him to protect her. More and more, he was coming to wonder if that had not been what had happened.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, he pressed her in against him as tightly as he could, as though trying to fuse their bodies together. When she had first asked him to do this for her, he had been afraid that he would hurt her. Instead, he had felt an unprecedented sense of peace through their bond, something he had never experienced from her before. In moments like this, when she fell within herself to a deep abyss of panic and pain, he could help her find her way back, give her something to anchor herself to, a thing to brace against as she hauled herself from the darkness.
"You are here,” he said, holding her to him with all of his strength, “I am here. I am here with you now,” he promised her, raising a hand to rest it gently against the back of her head, pressing her in closer, desperate for her to come back to him, “I have you. You are safe. You are alright. You are safe, Moiraine. I am here.”
[Image Description: Colored digital drawings of Aya and Razer from Green Lantern the Animated Series. Aya is a green and white humanoid robot with a catfish tail and face barbels. Her fingers detatch from her large forearm guards. Razer is a blue-skinned alien with facial markings in a red and blue uniform. Left: Aya, floating. Right: Aya looms over Razer, who looks up at her in amazement. Both look at each other. End ID]
gltas: yeah she’s like from the sliver of the big creature in the lantern-
me: IA BORN OF ION
please excuse me while i turn my daughter into a fish, she deserves a cool new look too. had the headcanon for a while that she returns to Ion in the lantern for a while before setting out on her own Identity Quest as an Orb with no memory
(In the hopes that Home Depot will be reasonably quick with my pick-up order, placed in the parking lot after failing to find it in-store, chilling in said parking lot instead of driving home just yet.)
Edit: SUCCESS. Took about an hour and a half overall.land home in time for lunch!
Wightwick manor and ‘A Marvellous Light’ (The Last Binding trilogy) inspired comfort art. Some are getting magical research done, some are reading victorian erotica and not hiding it, the cats are ‘helping’, normal sunday afternoon stuff. @fahye
(As always, click on image for crisper/bigger version!)
The morning after the reunion, Zolf wheeled himself out of his room in the back of the inn next to The Soggy Captain, attempting to open and close the door as quietly as possible. He knew it was early. Not like he’d been having much luck sleeping since, well, everything started, and even before then. He wanted to get some time to himself and roll around the city a bit before the ominous looking rain clouds decided to drench them.
However, he rolled out of his room and immediately saw Wilde, stepping out of his own room a few doors down the hall.
“Oh, good morning, Zolf,” he said with a smile. A sincere smile, though his eyes betrayed the myriad of emotions fluctuating beneath the surface.
“Yeah, ‘morning. Didn’t realize you were staying here.”
“Well, I figured it was best to find a room close by in case the festivities got bit toofestive.”
Zolf nodded. “Fair.” He paused for a moment, during which time he and Wilde could only look over the other, really taking them in for the first time in years.
“We didn’t get to talk too much last night,” Zolf continued, looking at his lap. “And there’s a lot I want to say. You know I’m not good with words, but-”
“It’s okay, Zolf.”
“No, it’s not, I left. Leaving is all I seem to be good at.”
Wilde moved toward him, hand outstretched as if to comfort him, but he stopped a few steps short. He still held out his hand, as if unsure of what to do.
“The short version is: I’m sorry,” Zolf said. He made sure to meet Wilde’s gaze this time, even as tears began to roll down his cheeks. “The long version is-”
“We don’t have to do that now if you don’t want,” Wilde interjected. “We’ll have time for that later. I forgive you. And, like I said, the door is always open for you.”
“I don’t want you to have to wait for me.”
“I don’t know how much choice either of us have in that.”
Zolf looked over Wilde again, grateful at least that the man seemed to be taking better care of himself now. And this was without Zolf making use of his kitchen and crafting him a variety of meals.
“There is one thing for right now. Can I… We didn’t… Can I hug you?” Zolf felt so small as he asked that, and he hated the way his voice quivered with the question.
Wilde smiled wide, his own tears starting to fall. He knelt down next to Zolf’s chair and pulled him into a tight embrace. Zolf hugged him back, burying his face in Wilde’s neck and letting the tears fall freely.
After what could only barely begin to make up for the embraces they missed in their years apart, they separated, though Wilde still remained on his knees as he wiped Zolf’s tear-stained cheeks.
“It really is good to see you again,” Zolf whispered, holding onto Wilde’s arm as if it was the only thing keeping him from being rolled away and never coming back.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
Before they could say anything more, a loud “Hello!” erupted from the main area of the inn, followed quickly by a scream and the hasty movement of some furniture.
“You don’t think… is Einstein staying here too?” Zolf asked.
Wilde shook his head. “How long do you think he was hiding in thatcupboard?”
“Do you think he slept there?”
With a faint chuckle, Wilde stood. “Shall we go see what he’s done now?”
“Yeah, let’s go. And, Wilde?”
“Hm?”
“Thank you. For everything. You’re… You’re better than I deserve.”
“I don’t care about ‘deserve.’ I want you around, I want you in my life. And that’s more than good enough for me.”
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