Alchemised

by SenLinYu

“I have warned you, if something happens to you, I will personally raze the Eternal Flame. That isn’t a threat. It is a promise. Consider your survival as much a necessity to the Resistance as Holdfast’s. If you die, I will kill every single one of them.”

He spoke just as she was leaving. “Don’t die, Marino. I might miss you.”

she had always thought it was an indulgence. She had not known it was a hunger. Or that she was starving.

“You made me feel like the parts of me that aren’t useful still deserve to exist. Like I’m not just all the things I can do.”

I hate him

She wasn’t crying. It was just the spray of the shower. It was just water on her face.

She barely towelled off before quickly pulling her hair into two braids so taut they tugged at her face. She coiled them at the nape of her neck, letting the pins scrape across her skin as she lodged them into place. She didn’t let herself look in the mirror until she was done, until there was not a stray curl to be seen.

No this is so sad I hate it

There were no visible signs of torture. No cuts or any external wounds. Instead the corticospinal tract in his spine had been pinched, paralysing him but leaving his sensory nerves intact. That way, he would feel everything.

The way I just took my exam on the corticospinal tract 😂

“Maybe that’s what they had to tell themselves, to live with it. Maybe it’s all they let themselves remember,” Helena said, but she, too, wondered that anyone who’d seen war’s true face would let it be so gilded.

“I live among idealists, but all I see are bodies. I’d like the opinion of someone who doesn’t believe that optimism somehow improves the odds.”

Touch him and she’d bleed, and yet she could not escape the allure of it.

“Eyes are awful. I mean, hopefully if you ever lost one, it would just grow back, but if not…” She exhaled. “The tissue doesn’t matrice the same way. It’s very tedious work, and nerve-racking. You should—probably come to me for that.

“I must say, Marino, you’ve ended up being quite expensive.”

“I can’t—I can’t do this again—” he finally gasped out. “I can’t care for someone again. I can’t take it.”

Perhaps, looking at her as his successor, he did find her tragic.

Bleh crowther

He stalked through the water towards Helena. Not a step wavering, cutting down everything that crossed his path.

“You are not expendable. You don’t get to push everyone away so that they’ll feel comfortable using you and letting you die.”

“You are not replaceable,” he said, his hands trembling against her shoulders. “You are not required to make your death convenient. You are allowed to be important to people. The reason I’m here—the reason I’m doing any of this—is to keep you alive. To keep you safe. That was the deal.” He searched her face. “They didn’t tell you.”

He touched her cheek, tilting her face up and kissing her. “Use the ring, call me, if you ever need anything.”

“I should have known—the moment I looked into your eyes, I should have known I would never win against you.”

Because his expression was withdrawn, and then, in an instant, triumph flashed across his face and he reached for her again.

He pulled her close, crushing her to his chest. “You’re mine. You swore yourself to me. Now and after the war. I’m going to take care of you. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. You don’t have to be lonely. Because you’re mine.”

Their foreheads touched, and she closed her eyes. It was as though their souls were touching, too.

She reached out, her fingers brushing back his hair. “Don’t worry. I’m always going to come back to you.”

If he couldn’t hide her, he would hoard her to himself as much as he was able to. She’d fallen for a dragon.

The war was a cage with no escape.

The space between them was like a chasm filled with every sin they’d ever committed against each other, but even from that distance, she could feel his anger.

His eyes flickered. “If that’s what you want.”

“Through wreckage, and piles of corpses, through prisons and mines and laboratories, and across a damned continent. I looked everywhere—except the one place that mattered.” His voice cracked, but he grinned. “Thank you, truly, for crediting my exceptional efforts.”

“Every time you asked, I promised I was yours. Always. There aren’t any exemptions or expiration dates on always.”

“We’ll go out together, won’t we, old girl? Bennet’s last two monsters.”

Amarissssssss

Helena watched him and recognised the expression that slowly filled his eyes as he stared at the tiny person tenaciously clinging to him: possessive adoration.

“Love isn’t as pretty or pure as people like to think. There’s a darkness in it sometimes. Kaine and I go hand in hand. I made him who he is. I knew what that array meant when I saved him. If he’s a monster, then I’m his creator.”