The moon glowed dimly, sinking into the black sea of stars, as a cold air swept through the crumbling walls of their current sanctuary. Falconia, although its white gates stood miles and miles away from her, still seemed so close, as if she had never truly left that barren room she was trapped in. Looking at the night sky, at the stars that flickered like the eyes of many hungry demons, Casca tried not to think about that kingdom or that cell, nor the false savior who brought her there.
She glanced behind her, towards the barely open door that led to Guts and that cursed armor he adorned. In the dim glow of candles, she could see his silhouette, sitting on the makeshift bed of his cloak and old blankets. His sword glimmered in the pale light of the moon, and the more she stared, the more she felt tears swelling in her eyes, until she finally looked away.
The others were likely still asleep, and with the combined magic of Farnese and Scheirke, they could sleep somewhat peacefully without any monsters coming to tear them apart. Some part of her wanted to pretend that the demons didn’t exist, that everything up until this particular night had been nothing but a horrible nightmare, but when she turned back towards him and saw the black armor seated beside his massive sword, she knew that it was real. It was simply impossible to pretend.
There is someone I want to see…
Casca gazed at him again, at the bandages that covered his body, at the blood that was already beginning to seep through them, at his missing hand, left defenseless without the prosthetic. Before she could stop herself, she was walking towards the door, a woolen blanket wrapped around her shoulders to shield her from the cold. The door creaked open, loud within the heavy silence of night.
He didn’t respond, which she couldn’t blame him for in the slightest, even if it made her breath shudder softly and her eyes burn with more tears. Those memories from the past still felt like fresh bruises across her mind, even the slightest touch could make them sting.
Quietly, she knelt down behind him, opening her arms like a great bird to wrap the blanket around the two of them. She laid her cheek on his shoulder, her mouth right beside the brand that was burned into his neck, the exact same one she herself carried. The wind blew gently outside, making the walls creak and the distant trees shiver in the cold. Casca could feel him shaking against her, and she fought the urge to just press her lips against each and every one of his new scars and burns. Not yet, she told herself.
She held him tighter. “I love you.”
Her voice was soft against his ear, but still, not one word escaped him. She wanted to scream and weep into his shoulder, kiss him until all of her senses went numb and all she could think about was him, but she knew that she’d be pushing herself too far. After all, that’s what he was afraid of as well, that one sudden movement, one word that was simply enveloped in his voice, and he would send her back into the nightmares.
I want you so bad, she wanted to say, I want you more than anything I’ve ever wanted, and if you would just look at me, just one glance. She couldn’t control herself, and a few tears began to trickle down her face, dampening the back of his neck. The world felt so small, so empty, as if everything, the trees and the winds, had been confined to this very room, this very moment.
“Please, look at me,” she whispered. “You don’t have to talk. Just look at me. That’s all I want.”
Casca nearly sobbed when he remained still, unmoving in her embrace, until his head slowly lowered down to his lap, then craned back towards her. She had almost forgotten what his eyes looked like, but as his remaining one gazed at her with so much fear and uncertainty, she felt like she was being propelled into the past, to a gushing waterfall on a bright day, to those eyes, back when he had both of them, looking at her so lovingly. Now, what remained was wet with tears, witness to horrors no human being could ever imagine or endure unscathed. That eye was exhausted, beautiful, his.
In a single instant, her hands were holding the sides of his face, her thumbs caressing the faded scars across his skin as if they were marks in her perfect sculpture, as he quietly wept. Their foreheads were touching, breaths mingling together with each shudder, and it was perfect. It was years of torture, years of repressed memories, years of narrowly escaping the clutches of death, all for this one moment, the closest thing they had to peace in what felt like an eternity.
She felt his hand tremble at her side, still horrified of reaching out and triggering another explosion of nightmares. His fingertips grazed her waist, just barely holding onto the loose fabric of her clothes, before he finally latched on. Casca was shaking as the fresh bruises across her mind began to sting and throb, but she squeezed her eyes shut and forced them back, back into the dark, deep pit from which they came, and focused only on him.
She remembered reaching out for him, the way his image slowly faded into the distance as Griffith, the bastard, carried her off into the night, into that cell-like room in Falconia. Just out of her reach, so close yet so painfully far, but now Guts was here, in her arms, and she had no intention of letting go.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled through his tears, but his words kept failing him. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to keep you safe. I’m sorry for failing you.
She kissed the scar across his nose, savoring the warmth of his skin against hers.
Guts didn’t hesitate. His face was buried in her neck, his remaining arm wrapped so tightly around her that he was nearly crushing her body against him, but she didn’t care. She hid herself in his shoulder, breathing him in as if he were the air she needed to live. The silence of night was shattered by the sounds of their shared sobbing and whispered words.
Lying down, as the wind snuffed the final candle and sleep began to engulf their minds, all she could feel was the softness of his breath grazing her collarbone. Casca stroked his hair, threading through the unkempt mess of black with a few streaks of white, while Guts just held her tighter, the force of his embrace both careful and desperate. She whispered his name, so soft that she hardly realized that she had said anything at all, not until he lifted himself up from her chest and gazed down at her.
Already, her hands were reaching for him once again, then pulling him down until her lips molded perfectly with his, as if they were sculpted for each other. The taste of him, like blood and the soil after it rains, was so familiar and yet so distant, like rediscovering an old relic of the past. The current night, Falconia, even the pain of the past and the uncertainty of the future, all seemed to melt away with the growing winds, and all the mattered was the scarred, warm body above her, and the quiet echo of his name rippling across her thoughts.
been rereading some berserk and I’ve been thinking about these two all week </3
stormborns
ellievsbear
areudirty
janainaart
pixelskylines
discoholicmusic
origamiaround
snowghoul
2087
