how do you feel?

being put together?

warm, she'd said. warm and whole and she'd crawled closer to him in that bath, pressed skin to him like a child fresh out of the womb - eyes closed, nosing into the safety of waiting arms and the falling away of responsibility, nothing but haze and the sound of fizzling water and no real understanding of the way the world works, not anymore, not ever again. 

it hurt. she had not known, until she went to king those days after, not knowing why her feet were taking her where they were - back to that place, his wolfish scowl, bruised knuckles - but un-feeling and un-knowing the scratching at the inside of her walls. 

not realizing that she had not been rewritten. she had been smothered. choked. left in a stagnant, floating state of almost-not-quite-never-quite destruction. spinning always out of reach through a fog until it thinned enough for heartbroken howls and gouged innards to electrify the small, lizard part of her brain that transcribed the best way it could and whispered, softly, gently, run.

she shivers. 

her arm shakes, but ana takes her gently and reminds her that she is in her body and that her body is her own. 

these decisions are her own. 

"you will walk the path i have meticulously set for you. whether you recognize or appreciate that is of no consequence."

are they?

early dawn shadows arc over the table, over their hands, and freya stares into those dark worlds where gaps still linger and every fiber of her being is telling her to draw away, to create those black holes and send them spinning, but instead she wiggles her fingers. 

she closes the gaps and the underside of her hand is pink from the pressure.

"a handshake usually seals a deal, right?" she says and notices how itchy her face is. she mops at it with her other hand, gives the one clenching ana's - the one held by ana's - a pulse before relaxing, but she lingers still, savoring for another selfish second the wondrous joy it is to be held.

"work for me. feed the dragons. stand by my side. and maybe, every once in a while, get me a coffee."

ana fell

☉