her breath leaves her when she hits the bed, fingernails scraping skin as she goes, too stubborn to let go. she sits up with as much dignity as she can manage and that furious, simmering anger ignites in full force. 

"my pet project? that's how little you think of me?" her cheeks flush. "after everything i've told you."

and more frustrating is the glassiness, sudden and unbidden, in her eyes. tender moments, confessions of her confusing feelings, not knowing what or how it means to love, all splattered with red. 

"i can't take back what i did. i kept from you all the hurt because i didn't want you to feel it and i didn't want you to hate me, but what choices have you made, king? what choices have you made for me?"

KING WAYLAND

☉

her eyes narrow. they chase each other around this argument and she wants to strangle him. his freedom in return for community service hours. a palpable, real life for delta. and a future for them. 

but that light is waning now. 

what she's done? she can't change that. she can't go back. she thought, after everything they'd been through together, that they could persevere. she thought they could withstand one more push, but she toppled them over the edge and now they lay sprawled and hurting in different worlds. 

"i'm fucking trying, king," she snaps. 

sticky cobwebs of resentment sway - always, always, she did the wrong thing, no matter how much she tried otherwise. silly, stupid, pathetic little girl.

"i shouldn't have kept it all from you, but stop telling me it's because i don't trust you. i never asked you to trust them. i asked you to trust me. i was so terrified of losing you, king. i was so terrified of losing the only person in the world who's ever seen me."

KING WAYLAND

☉

time can't touch them here. not with the alarm clock plug pulled out of the wall. not with their phones still by the door, sitting in their haphazardly strewn clothes. long rays of shadows stretch, tinged pink, and dawn threatens, but here and now, they carry on forever. 

always circling because there's no resolution to be found. 

"i want you to LIVE!" she shouts, shaking with anger. "we were wrong for attacking matias! we were wrong for surviving only for a chance at vengeance. for wanting to burn and burn and burn. i don't want to burn anymore, king, and i know you don't either, but you...you have to take that first step."

a muscle in her cheek flicks. "you have to be stronger than me and ask for help."

KING WAYLAND

☉

and she, who has never asked for help. she, who would run herself into the ground, who would rip apart her skin to hide the scars, who would put on a war face and throw herself on the pyre before admitting she could not do anything alone. 

she has never known betrayal like him. 

and if she had, maybe she would have been less callous. but freya does not know what it means to be gentle. and she was blind to this man who knocked her senses back into her and drew her, sputtering and kicking, back to herself. she was blind to his suffering and his pain and all the while she poured salt into his wounds and prayed what she was doing was right. 

her shoulders sag. her palms are face-up on the bed, fingers half-curled. she cranes her neck back at his whisper, closes her eyes. starlight drips down her cheeks. and then, with care, she turns. she folds over him and she brushes her lips into his hair and she holds him.

just holds him - there's nothing more to say.

KING WAYLAND

☉