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The harder you care, the more fragile everything seems. Easier to just . . . Not.
Survival’s funny. Some wear it like a whisper, others like a scream. Mine’s a scorched skeleton of flame-forged rage that keeps me upright. Keeps me moving forward.
Sadness is like stones that stack inside you, making it harder to move. Ignorance is my self-preservation tonic, and I’ll swear by it until I die.
There’s something poetic about looking up and seeing that which has passed. A soft launch into grief for those who linger below. If I could ball myself up like a Moonplume and nestle amongst the stars when I know my time has come, I would. Not that I think many would seek me out, but I’d die knowing I left something bright behind in this beautiful world sketched in so many shades of ugly.
“Who are you protecting, Moonbeam?”
“I’m not one to share,” the King says, his voice low and steady.
“Kaan, no. I did not agree to this!” His body stiffens, steps slowing, a low, grating sound coming from him. “Say it again . . .” “What?” “My name, Moonbeam. Say it again.”
“Because I was mourning someone I loved very much. I discovered my pah had done something unforgivable, and I took her revenge because I thought she no longer could. Now I have regrets.”
“Thank you.” I look between them both. “You don’t need me to kill anyone in exchange for it, do you?” Silence prevails for so long I almost repeat the question. “Ahh, no. We’ll pass,” the red-haired male says. “Nice.” And strange. That’s usually how it works.
This shift in tone is really bizarre
“Thinking of going somewhere, Moonbeam?” My head whips around, heart plopping into my guts at the sight of Kaan reclined in the booth—hair pulled back, loose bits hanging around his fiercely beautiful face.
chasing the cloud’s mournful tears as they sing their fatal song. Like each tiny raindrop is innately aware they’re caught in a descent that can only end one way. That they will never be more whole than they are right now, plummeting to their doom.
“I once knew a female who’d cry when it rained, though she thought I never noticed,” he murmurs against my ear, his dense words battling the torrent of mournful cries like a boom of thunder. “Her name was—” “Elluin.”
“Her name was Slátra,” Kaan says, a rawness to his voice that I’ve never heard before. “I’m yet to find her final shards. You can’t see on this side, but there’s a small crevice around the back of her I still need to fill.”
“Her name was Elluin, and she laughed with the wind, cried with the rain. She angered with fire and bellowed with the ground. Her heart thumped in synchrony with—”
Elluin is dead.” “Stop.” His word commands. His eyes plead.
She's such an asshole for saying that to him
“Saving my life, dragging me away to your big, bright kingdom where everybody fucking loves you is not going to reincarnate her. I’m not yours, and I never will be.”
Stop. My fucking heart.. she's so cruel
“Chase death, Moonbeam. And I pray your bloodlust brings you the same sense of peace I feel just knowing you exist.”
He cupped my face with such tenderness it was like he was cradling a dragon’s egg, and I nuzzled his palm. Found so much comfort in it that I wanted to stay right there. Forever.
Before I erase it all.
Why are we still doing this? Im over her acting like this. The Tookah wouldve made sense as a turning point. This feels like bad writing
He’s fire and brimstone. I’m shattered ice. Our collision is steam and destruction, destined to dissipate, but I’ll gladly burn beneath him until the world comes crumbling down.
Released my inner crafty bitch and let her shine.
Ew
You don’t simply scratch an itch with Kaan Vaegor, then throw him away and move on to another. You peel back your skin and open your ribs to the male. You tuck him somewhere deep and safe, fight others off with weapons forged from secrets sharp enough to slice, then perish with those secrets clutched close to your chest.
“I don’t understand how you still look at me like you want me.”
“Raeve, you could flay me down the middle and I’d still fucking love you.”
The word is a quiet death that slips away without so much as a whispered goodbye—an abrupt shove into an eternal loneliness I’ll never deign myself to claw free of.
“And if I win, we pretend we’re the ones who existed in that place I suspect you built for us, but only until next aurora rise. At which stage, you’ll owe me a single wish.”
Wtf? I hate this
will have a Mindweft smudge you from my brain. Get back to reality. The wish is precautionary.”
WHAT? This is fucking awful
“So . . . is there somewhere for me to store my gold so we can enjoy the festival without lugging it everywhere?”
So fucking cold and callous to the love of her life after just telling him she wants to wipe him from her memories
We get to live this fantasy out, then I can get back to living my solitary life lifted by the knowledge that he’s safe from whatever curse seems to follow me around like an invisible scythe, slaying anybody I form attachments to.
Zero character growth
The words are so clipped they sting. There’s a hardness in his eyes I’ve never seen before. Cold. Detached.
Its your own fucking fault? Why is she surprised
“Dance with me?” I whisper. The ball in his throat rolls as his eyes take on slightly softer lines. As my heart thumps harder, those fluttering things inside my chest multiplying. Nuzzling against my ribs and making my entire body tingle. “Please?” A moment of pause before he stands, towering above me, ignoring my outstretched hand. “Lead the way, Prisoner Seventy-Three.” I take his hand anyway, then tug him toward the exit.
Callous b****
The only beam of light I’ll ever need or want in this world, my love for her sitting like a moon in my chest. Only this moon will never fall, no matter how hard she tugs on it.
Yet here I am again, standing stationary while Raeve dances around me with my soft heart in her fucking hands, dripping blood all over the floor. Here I am again, looking at her like she crafted the world with a few whispered words, every sweep of her eyes twisting that jagged weapon lodged in my chest.
She’s hurting. Lost someone. Maybe more than one. She thinks she doesn’t deserve . . . this. Us. That if she opens her heart and lets me in, something bad will happen.
Goddamn at least someone sees it since she is still so thoroughly in denial
She coaxes me to twist with her to the music’s droning tide, and I give her the bare minimum, turning as she drags me about the floor, feeling like I’m standing in the path of an impending moonfall—too transfixed on its plummeting beauty to step to the side. To save myself. She spins into my arms this time—so close. So unbearably far away.
The ache
I don’t want the perfect goodbye. I want to say hello to Raeve—whoever that is. Whoever’s tucked beneath that hardened exterior, I want to know her. Be around her. Love her.
What I wouldn’t do to help her feel whole again. To piece her back together, much the same as I did her dragon. Weathering the cuts to my flesh. The frostbite. The endless fucking regressions when the entire thing would crumble and I’d have to start all over again.
“Your hands know me,” she whispers. “Yes,” I murmur against her hair. “Know you, crave you, worship you.”
I was living an eternal solitude, more than prepared to spend forever feasting on her memory, yet here she is, fully intent on erasing me like a stain. Despite knowing—at least in part—what we had. What we were.
I’d spend eternity looking up at her if she’d only fucking let me.
It’s like watching Slátra fall apart all over again, feeling that crumbling grief inside my chest as the pieces scattered right when she was taking on such sturdy shape.
She could sink me to the bottom of the Loff, and it’d still burn like a sun.
Small flapping things swarm through my chest while I wait, for better or for worse. Broken or whole. Wanting. Loving.
I pause, close my eyes, and absorb—pulling my lungs full, like her tone is a meal my soul just sat down to feast upon.
“This hurts, Raeve . . .” “I don’t want that,” she rasps, and her arms tighten their grip on mine, like a clenching comfort that fails to soothe the burn. “I wanted—” “I know what you wanted. But I find no joy in pretending to have something we don’t.” “I can’t do anything but pretend . . .”
Absolutely awful to Kaan
My heart splits, the knowledge of her devastating past sitting in my chest like a lump of lead. A cruel, burdening weight I loathe to pile atop whatever grief she’s already carrying before she slips through my fingers again. But a necessary cruelty.
Its really not necessary though. Hes bending over backwards for her and the story uses his empathy to soften her abuse. Shes denying her feelings, his feelings, and vehement that this is the only way. This is just sustained emotional cruelty with no consequence
I thought I’d have more time to pick the right moment. Wait for her to grow curious and seek the answers out since the moon reveal went so fucking poorly.
If her character development wasnt shit, this wouldve happened
She senses the weight of her past, or she wouldn’t be resorting to such extreme measures. She’s poisoning her curiosity, refusing to let it sprout.
