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“Erebos,” Somewhere among the mess that you are there is a smile that you smile only for him as he pulls you from your solemn thoughts, endless what ifs and buts and not-good-enoughs. He hesitates, and your smile (along with a little prick of embarrassment, of shyness) grows infinitely, finding some sense of comfort in the way that, for once, he seems just as unsure as you. Your eyes shift to your child as you feel him move against you, reach to nuzzle his little cheek, his eyes wide and unmoving from the frame of the prince lingering on the edge of everything he knows—and how odd it must be, you think, to see these things for the very first time, to be so new, so very (unknowingly) vulnerable. ‘I thought you were hurt.’
It is only a laugh that he is met with as you turn your head, eyes narrowing mischievously as they find his gaze again. You do not know how to accept his concern, how to accept the reasons why he may have thought so, may have assumed the worst so easily. And so you don’t, rolling your eyes in an attempt to make yourself, and more importantly, him, believe that it does not faze you, does not beg a thousand and one questions. “Wishful thinking?” Another smile, despite the twisting in your heart, a small shake of your head at the thought of what you would have done should it have been you that had smelled the blood, the thought of that night when you had found him and all of his strength had failed—the feeling of knowing something was wrong but not what. It sobers you quickly, drags the smile in to a thin line as your face softens, trying your best to comfort him.
“I can take care of myself, you know. You don’t need to worry.” The silence that finds the two of you, then, it quickly turns uncomfortable, awkward, and you shift beneath his gaze, your own falling from his face to his neck, the tendrils of his dark, dark hair, tangled in places with small petals of snow, and finally to the glint of his cloven hooves. You do not remember the last time (had there been any time?) there had been such stillness between the two of you, his stories and antics provoking too much to allow for it, and your tongue dances behind your lips impatiently, your lack of anything to say in the absence of his witticisms quickly growing frustrating until—finally—‘congratulations.’ It is not what you had expected, and though you look to him once more, smiling briefly, your attention flickers to the reason of the word, trying to ignore the emptiness, trying to ignore that face still stapled to the back of your eyelids. “Thank you.”
Thank you, and only thank you, because the sheltered, double-edged happiness that it is to have a breathing child, one that is so nearly perfection in all the ways that he possibly could be (gluttonously, perhaps, but it is all too much for you to take, to understand) is not enough. It is not enough to silence all the ways that him not being here, not being yours, make you feel, make you bleed. It is the sound of another that pulls you from your brooding, your head twisting curiously to peek around Erebos, only to hear a familiar voice, see yet another familiar face. She is a welcomed distraction, a needed comfort, and you smile widely as she begins to settle. “Oh, Tia,” the words are an elated gush, unintentionally interrupting the possible greeting that she had intended for Erebos. You cannot recall the last time you had seen her (and maybe that is for the best, the memories too tender), your seclusion reaching beyond days, months, though the ache is never far from your thoughts, never entirely shut out.
You did not—do not—want to burden them, these two that have found you, the girl made of stardust, with such trivial little things, when time has moved on and so should you, when you know that they will not, could not understand (and what would you tell them even if they tried? That you wish for things to be different, for the chance to be astonishingly selfish—more than you have been—without the hassle of guilt, to leave your responsibilities, this child pressed against you so close, as easily as he had, to forget that any of it ever happened? To forget, to forget, to forget—), when they undoubtedly have heartaches and troubles of their own, heartaches and troubles that you have already so selfishly left them with, when you do not deserve to be consoled for all the wrongs that you have done.
Before you can even ask her about herself, all of the things that you (may not) have missed, undeniable excitement creeps suddenly along her feminine features, and you cannot deny the swell of pride that laces itself within your heart, too enraptured with her excitement to remember anything else. As she reaches forwards, the boy flinches back, only seconds passing before he leans in to her touch with his tiny muzzle, eyes searching her face with genuine curiosity. Even when she pulls from him, he watches her closely, fixated on the seaweed and shells braided within her hair, the glowing trinkets around her neck. She looks to you and again you squirm underneath all of their focus, forcing a smile in response to her praise. “He … he takes after his father. More than he does me, at least.”
It is mumbled out of a feeling of necessity, the churning in your stomach nearly causing you to grimace, the tiny fraction of comfort that you had managed to find in her presence diminishing quickly. ‘Do you need anything? Water? I have herbs—’ You can only smile as she turns her head to go through the assortment of plants within the locks of her long hair, reminding you of why you had liked her in the first place, all the ways she is too sweet for her own good. You purse your lips, inhaling to respond to her question when a cry from your child that you turn from her, watching with a furrowed brow as he moves from something, wiggling against you desperately. At first you only brush against him, trying to offer comfort where seemingly little can be found, worried eyes glancing to Tia only briefly before a foreign movement catches your attention.
As his face begins to take shape out of nothing, the blood from yours turns cold, for a moment your breath caught in your throat as if you forgot everything except that he is here, mere inches from your son’s face. “You.“ It is but a breath, dangerous in its quietness, woven with threat, built upon a ferocity that is entirely too familiar to you, entirely too familiar because he had been the one to ignite it, the day he had mutilated her corpse. “Out.”
“Get. Out.” It is without any further hesitation that you scramble clumsily to find your footing, your exhausted body responding to some buried instinct faster than your tired mind can even comprehend the motions. It is in this same desperate haze that you find yourself lunging for the man’s shoulder with bared teeth, intent on harm, mutilation, anything, anything to prove to him that your words had not been hollow, the memory of your antlers pressed so dangerously close to his throat and the why only serving to add solidity to your absolution. Once, maybe, it would have weakened you, broken the anger that so clearly clouds your mind now, shown you just how senseless, how brash, how wrong and against everything you have believed in so fervently, causing harm like this is. But now? Now it only drives you as you tuck your head to your chest, antlers aiming up and forwards to plunge in to the muscled flesh of his neck before your body follows the momentum, the width of your chest seeking to barrel in to the expanse of his, hoping to knock him off balance, away, anything, anything but staying so terribly close to the fragile boy huddled helplessly against the stone of the cavern floor.
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like punching in a dream, breathing life into a nightmare