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January 14 - January 16, 2025
“No, beautiful,” he said, shaking his head. “You look like salvation and temptation all rolled into one.”
No one ever knew what to do with her except shove her aside. Lock her away. Too wild to be something, so forced to be nothing.
She wouldn’t survive this. It would break her. And she didn’t burn when she broke. She shattered, and the world shattered with her.
“Know that sometimes we must break to be forged into who we were meant to be,” she said, streaks of violet flickering in her eyes like lightning cutting through the flecks of gold. Then she bent and pressed her lips to Tessa’s brow. “You will break, Tessalyn. Make sure you get back up and take what is yours.”
Never once did it register how much trouble she was going to be in because all she could think about was open spaces and fresh air not tainted with expectations and demands.
It had been worth it to not be able to think about anything else while Theon had brought her to ruin. She didn’t care what that said about her. Drowning in rapture kept her from shattering, and she wasn’t about to apologize for how she held the pieces of her soul together.
The moment her thoughts and memories had started to surface again, she’d only wanted to sleep. Not because she was exhausted or tired. She definitely should have been after the events of the day. But when it came down to it, she just didn’t want to be awake. She didn’t want to be awake now either. It was coming. The dark was coming at any moment, and she couldn’t decide if she even cared.
“It’s something you can’t learn until you’re forced to walk through it, but you’d know that strength grows in the moments you think you can’t go on, but you do anyway. Strength is fighting back. Strength is doing whatever it takes to claim what is yours, even if others try to convince you it is not yours to take.”
Weakness and strength come from the same place, and both are necessary. Both provide purpose, and both can lead to destruction or salvation.
“You didn’t want to be Selected as a Source, but a part of you is glad you were because it means you’re not as worthless as you’ve clearly been told you are. That someone just might see some value in you, even if you can’t see it yourself. It’s a little bit of hope you’re too afraid to cling to, so you let yourself sink instead. But that’s not what scares you the most. No, the thing that scares you most is that you want this life. You want to be more than forgotten. You want to be more than just another Fae assigned to some menial task in the kingdoms. I know you’re simply too afraid to admit
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All these years of wishing for death, and now she was this close to finally having it. The idea of dying was terrifying, but the idea of truly not having to care anymore? That idea was freeing.
She’d been trying to care when no one had truly cared for her in so long, she’d stopped caring about anything.
She’d been trying, and all he’d done was tell her it wasn’t enough. That she wasn’t enough. That he needed her to try harder. Needed her to be more. Needed her to give and give and give. And now she was this. She’d stopped trying. She’d stopped trying to be anything but the unpredictable, wild thing she was. It wasn’t her fault. Everyone had demanded something of her she simply didn’t know how to manifest. Instead of teaching her to harness her wildness, she’d learned to simply survive with it.
“When a person finally accepts they are nothing,” she continued. “It’s a freedom, really.” “You are not—” “Shh,” she hushed, placing a finger against his lips. “When you accept you are nothing, it frees you from caring.” “Tessa—” “And when you’re already nothing, you can really become anything.”
Was it supposed to be like this? No one had told her. No one had prepared her. She was just expected to know so many godsdamn things, and she knew nothing.
“Because it reminds us that even chaos needs to scream sometimes. That even with all the magic and power among the realms and between the stars, even with technology and all the tools we have at our disposal, some things are, in fact, uncontrollable.”
It liked the idea of being feared. She liked the idea of being feared.
Over and over she hummed the ballad as her thoughts shifted from one thing to the next. She didn’t know who to trust anymore, so she would trust no one. Not until they’d proven themselves, given her a reason to believe there wasn’t some ulterior motive behind every word and action.
She’d get back up. She’d be the fucking storm. Because the thing about light? When strong enough, it could obliterate darkness.
