it was distance that normally cleared daemian's head. that if he could take more steps back that he would see her more clearly, but as he did so, as his body locked up, syrenna had only gotten more blurry in his vision. it could have been the wetness pooling in his eyes, the onslaught of emotion that was hammering down upon him like a smith would to a piece of iron, but daemian would be the last to admit that tears were welling in his eyes. but he had just bared his soul to her, had laid everything out upon the stone altar between them and was begging her to get down upon her knees and forgive him. he knew it was wrong, daemian did not expect that of her, but hope was a fickle thing. like the weeds of the riverlands, ones that attached themselves to something and refused to let go unless they were ripped out from the roots. he had never been able to rip syrenna out of him completely. he had tried. oh seven, had he tried. the hacking of bodies and bathing of blood to wash her touch from his skin, the horrendous crimes he committed, but she still stuck to him. she had buried her roots deep into his chest and he had been doomed from the moment he had looked upon her under that tree — their tree. he would love her forever. a plague he could not escape from.
"i had hoped—" his voice is hoarse, raw, as if he had been screaming in the height of battle. instead, he was flaying his skin open to let syrenna watch as his blood pumped and heart beat only for her. "no— i did not hope... i could never hope you would recover from me." an honesty that crawls up his skin and stabs holes into him, "i just wished you did — the sick part of me that hoped you would so that i could too. that whatever i had meant to you would be washed away with the next storm and the hurt i had caused by leaving would mean nothing to you afterward. that you would not remember me come the next autumn and you would be washed clean of the stain i had made." because that is what he was — a stain. something to be washed out like the dark red pooling in the shirt of a lifeless body. he did not deserve to be remembered, to be something that needed to be recovered from. "that perhaps what i was, would not be a loss at all, but a gain in remembrance of a life before."
could he be so foolish? could he truly believe the woman he had spent years coming back to would have let him if he had meant nothing? it is only what he was taught as he aged that cements the notion in his chest. that his mother and father had only called upon him when he was needed, that even if he came back they would not need him again after, and he would become a ghost within the halls of claw isle as he was before. it was that fear that stretched the distance between him and syrenna, fear he was not ready to give up to her all those years ago, but was spilling from his lips now. years too late to truly make a difference. but if westeros were to go to war the next day and he were to perish in the midst of it all, he would find himself regretting the chance to tell her.
"yes—" daemian's words are breathless as they leave his lips, an admission that was so little, but came from so deep within him. "i feared it, that what you saw me become would cause you to run. that seeing me covered in someone's blood would make you sick at the sight of me — i feared it more than anything." he tries not to flinch as she steps closer, for he knows that syrenna would never hurt him the way he hurt her. the closeness has him sucking in a breath, a wild look in violet eyes, as if he were the stag and not her. wasn't he though? the one that chased her through those woods like a rabid animal seeking a prey that belonged to him. a possession that crawled up his skin and ended in his fingertips when they would grasp ahold of her, branding her.
it is the sight of the pendant he had made for her that feels like a kick to the head. it disorients him, eyes blinking rapidly to make sure he was not in the middle of a dream. the entire time. her words slam against the inside of his skull. "you— you have worn this? you kept it." the latter is not a question, but a statement. a realization that daemian's brand was on her, stayed on her, screamed mine, mine, mine to anyone that dared look. the sick possession, the obsession, that he had felt all those years ago is raking bloody marks up his throat. wishing to crack from his skin and latch onto her, to sink claws deep into her so their blood mixed and marked them together for eternity.
the shock of her skin, the feeling of her hands cradling his own, makes heat pool inside of him. something burning and hot, scalding and just the way he had remembered it all those years ago. a warmth he craved, one he would turn the world over again and again, to feel. "sapling—" his breath hitches inside of his throat, watches her with bated breath take ahold of him and bring his hands up to her cheeks. his calloused hands, soaked in blood, did not belong against her face so perfect. but he would be damned if he let go. not now. not ever if he got that chance. his fingers flex against the curve of her cheeks, pressing in slightly just to feel the skin beneath them, the flesh of her and everything he had let go all those years ago. daemian could imagine that they were young again now, standing in the woods and he is looking at her through a lens that is not quite corrupted yet, but on its way. the flash of it is there and then gone, a reminder he is not in the past and syrenna stood in front of him in all of her beautiful glory. "there is nothing i have suffered more than the loss of you," words come out a quiet whisper, something that even if another had walked by to witness them, only the two of them could hear it. "every time i closed my eyes, i saw you behind them, only to open them and find you were not there."
daemian had imagined the moment over and over again in the haze of blood loss, telling the woman he loved that he did so. he had imagined that she would be smiling at him, that it would be said with a happiness that he could not contain any longer. that they would be sat under their tree in the wood of the stormlands and rejoice in their glee afterward. yet, it comes from desperation instead, the need for syrenna to know what he had been keeping from her all these years. that she was so close to him now, for the first time after he left, only for her to be slipping through the cracks of his fingers and he needed her to know. if it was the last thing he would say to her, daemian needed her to know.
a hand comes out, the ones that had fallen to his side after feeling the warmth of her skin against his fingertips, to grasp ahold of the necklace that he had made her and she had kept, had worn. he twists the iron in his palm, so it is just as much apart of him as it is her, letting it cut into his skin as he grips it and drags her toward him. so impossibly close that their breaths mingle and her chest connects to his own, silk upon silk, heat upon heat. if anyone were to catch them, it would only spark questions, but daemian does not care. not now, not when he needs to tell her what is sitting on the tip of his tongue and has been since as long as he could remember. "i love you." it is not said in a hurry, but there is desperation to his tone anyways, an admission that came from so deep within it rattles his bones. "you have carried my heart on this chain since i left, it has been yours, syrenna, it has always been yours." i fear it will always be yours, is the one thing he cannot say. not when he knows there is another woman in that great hall that is marked to be his forever. “but i—”
and then he hears it, the shouts and ruckus coming from the hall they had just left, from all around the keep. something was happening and it was clearly nothing good. there is a sickness! a plague! he hears it and a panic seizes through him. so much so that he lets go of the necklace he holds, his hands instead gripping at syrenna's hips through her silks, “you must go,” he does not want her to, he still means to tell her that he loves her, but that he is to be married. yet, all that runs through his mind is making sure syrenna gets somewhere safe away from everyone, from him as he does not know if the sickness will run through him. “i shall make sure you are well tomorrow, sapling, but you must go and see your family.”