His eyes slit open, studying the flower before it's offered, studying it further as the light of it dances in reflection where his eyes would otherwise swallow the sun. Three warming stones thralled for their purpose slip beneath the collar of his outer robe, and he holds out a hand, not first to take but to touch one petal, to see what it is, to be the man he's always been.
Not gentle enough for some things, too willing for others, in fascination with a world that claimed certain truths he challenged simply because accepting what he's told is as foreign as it is to trust that others intuit a world they do not question better than one which is tested, proven, true.
"Beautiful," he remarks, as if that's all there is to say, as if the pause that follows means he might gloss past her words that parted the silence.
Perhaps he's a more honest man in the company of women. Or perhaps he learned at his shijie's feet what it meant to trust, and at her mother's whip what it meant to persist in the face of spite, merited and not.
"I ache from death. I shouldn't, in enough ways—I resisted death until I sought it, and then death denied me, until one who sought death pulled me out of the lightless abyss. Then here, it never stops calling."
The rise and fall of Lethe's ribs beneath them a subtle reminder of what should be, but may not be.
"Finally it quiets, and I worry more, because it's the lie that hides so much worse beneath its surface. I keep hoping exhaustion will be enough to let me sleep."
Instead of dreams wrenching him into nightmares and poor rest, night after night, waking up to silent screams and tears or heart-racing confusion, settling back while Lan Zhan sleeps, before the dawn calls to him and he leaves the bed as cold as Anurr's touch.
no subject
Not gentle enough for some things, too willing for others, in fascination with a world that claimed certain truths he challenged simply because accepting what he's told is as foreign as it is to trust that others intuit a world they do not question better than one which is tested, proven, true.
"Beautiful," he remarks, as if that's all there is to say, as if the pause that follows means he might gloss past her words that parted the silence.
Perhaps he's a more honest man in the company of women. Or perhaps he learned at his shijie's feet what it meant to trust, and at her mother's whip what it meant to persist in the face of spite, merited and not.
"I ache from death. I shouldn't, in enough ways—I resisted death until I sought it, and then death denied me, until one who sought death pulled me out of the lightless abyss. Then here, it never stops calling."
The rise and fall of Lethe's ribs beneath them a subtle reminder of what should be, but may not be.
"Finally it quiets, and I worry more, because it's the lie that hides so much worse beneath its surface. I keep hoping exhaustion will be enough to let me sleep."
Instead of dreams wrenching him into nightmares and poor rest, night after night, waking up to silent screams and tears or heart-racing confusion, settling back while Lan Zhan sleeps, before the dawn calls to him and he leaves the bed as cold as Anurr's touch.