and i know that none of it matters

It is hard to mistake his distance, to see the way that the memories have molded and shaped him as he speaks about the ones he once (does?) held close to his heart. You cannot help but to remember Rikyn, the tiny span of time that you had spent trying to teach him, the pull of something (perhaps it was that he had been like Erebos, though you had not known it, still do not know it) making you want to know him, despite his displeasure of your black tongue that had been provoked by the insipid girl (creature) that had been with you. Cannot help but to wonder what it would have been like to grow up in these mountains, away, safe, from the rest of the world, so very secluded. Wonder what Erebos had been like, if he had always been just the same or if he had grown into his mischievous ways.

He continues, and as he narrows his eyes, you feel your heart begin to sink, your breaths coming faster in fearful anticipation, the sense of lingering on the edge of treachery nearly overwhelming. Even more than before, you are unsure that you want to know, afraid of the things he’d seen, things he’d done, afraid that opening up to you would only push him further away. ‘When I got there, though, she was dead. She’d been murdered.’  It is not what you had expected, if you had even expected anything, and you can only look at him as he looks at you, brows furrowing as your body leans forwards, wanting desperately to hold him but unsure of just what to do.

‘I couldn’t do anything.’

“Erebos,” it is but a breath, crackling within its sorrow, too rough to belong as you reach to kiss his brow, lingering until you find the courage to pull away, to look at his face and see the depth of loss, of blame and accusations, in those too-blue eyes all over again. “There isn’t a single soul that could have. Not with all of the willpower, the might, not with all of the magic in the world.” You press in to him once more, head resting against his neck, lips tracing along the sinewy lines of his shoulder. It hadn’t been enough then, when you tried, tried, and tried again—when you had tried to save her even though there had been nothing to save, and all of your knowledge, the gifts of your beloved North’s god, your failing strength, your need—it had not been enough. How could he have expected anything different? “We both know that if there was someone to save her, it would have been you.”

Maybe he doesn’t, but you do. For all of the things that you have ever thought of him, all of the things that he has shown you, done, he has never ceased to build your belief that beneath his childishness, foolishness, he is capable of great things; that his heart, despite his trickeries and adolescence, has always been in the right place. You breathe softly against the pain in your chest, wanting to say more, say anything, wishing you had the words, the mind, to comfort and protect him from his own misplaced blame, the shadow looming over his heart. A part of you, despite the impossibilities, the repercussions, wants to shelter him, to be able to make him forget so that he would not have to live with such pain as loss (to forget, to forget, to forget). But once more, you find yourself incapable, powerless, to do anything but stand, so far, so terribly out of reach (lost, like he had been) even though you can feel his heat, his heartbeat, through your skin.

“Who…?” It’s the only thing you can think to say, hoping to put a name, a face, anything, to his pain, so that, maybe someday, it can be more than your feeble support that you give to him.

(Just say the word and I would hunt them all down for you, too.)

as long as i'm inside this dream with you