and i know that none of it matters

Even as he turns to look at you, to smile and ensnare you with all of his boyish nonsense, you do not know what to expect. All of your anxiety sits coiled in the pit of your stomach, your thoughts turning to ash as soon as they are hatched, your words dying upon your tongue before they have the chance to be spoken. Your anger, in all of its fruitless stubborn, stupid ways, dictates that you should expect nothing, want nothing from this child that would so easily lose you, forget you. And you want to want nothing, to be able to turn from him and let go (to forget, to forget, to forget), want to take back everything you had said, to punish him for being mad when he should have understood. You want it to be easy, but your heart is too bruised, what little pride you have too wounded. You want him to be okay (I am tired of seeing my friends in pain), but how can it ever be that way when he knows what it is to be unable to help, even to lose (something that you know, understand, all too well)?  ‘Enna,’ you can only blink as he immediately pulls you from your memories, your self-pity, can only clutch at your heart in the way that it aches, watch as he extends (false) courtesies, wonder if he had he ever been so keen to live up to the crown placed upon his head, so willing to be more than just a boy with all his stupid (wonderful) ways.

Where you feel only that he is poking fun at you, antagonizing you, Etziel is decidedly less turned off by his display, his grin wide and entranced, his heart curious; you can feel his muscles tense, the gentle lean of his body before it snaps back in place, too timid to stray. He wants to learn, wants to know, is acutely aware of the others that live and breathe the North, but you have kept him sheltered, away from their judgments, their harsh words, cold hearts, from all the harm that seems to perpetually follow them. You know that it is not forever that you will be able to protect him, know that, someday entirely too soon, he will be too willed, too wild, for you to keep him within your shadow. It is something that you dread, something that weighs too heavy on your mind each time another passes by, reminds you of the world that exists outside of the cocoon of safety that you have made for him. Even now, looking back to the prince (child, you think—he is nothing but a child, a devious little child), someone that you trust(ed), it sets your teeth to grinding, your heart lurching uncomfortably to think of them with anything less than a lake (an ocean, a world), between them.

‘Is there something you need?’

“No.”

You answer too quickly, your eyes narrowing ever so slightly—annoyance and worry and hurt blooming within your soul, festering until it becomes something ugly; something that sets your blood on fire, bows your sympathy to the flame to be engulfed, smothered, lost. From the moment you recognized his tall frame you had only stayed to understand, to make amends and to be fine again, and yet here he is acting like nothing happened, as if all of the nameless things between the two of you have not been marred, broken, changed. It angers you now that he makes light of it, angers you the way it had angered him, and for moments you allow yourself to sit in this heated silence, eyes dropping from his face to the rippling reflection in the water, inwards to the stones that line the shallow bank. “What I said the other day,”

Your voice is shaky, unsure, black tongue heavy with all of the words you would rather say, all of the hurts you would rather inflict. “I,” you stumble again, brows furrowing as you struggle to get anything coherent out. When did it become so hard to apologize? Even without his needless provocations, his indifference, from the moment you had seen him, drowned that swell of excitement that is so familiar to you whenever he's around, remembered all that had transpired in moments, you had been so reluctant to say anything, to acknowledge, to delve into the fact that you may have been wrong. It is only as anger resides in to a restless stillness, the feeling of the emptiness of his eyes, waiting, that you lift your head once more, ears tilting back in apprehension as you reach for his gaze, afraid to ask, afraid to know everything that had torn the two of you to this. “What happened?”

as long as i'm inside this dream with you