sound of the blade

at the end of the world

Name one hero who was happy. You can’t. I can’t. I know. They never let you be famous AND happy. I’ll tell you a secret. Tell me. I’m going to be the first. Swear it.  Why me? Because you’re the reason. Swear it. I swear it. I swear it. I feel like I could eat the world r a w.

                - name one hero who was happy

i will never leave him. it will be this, always, for as long as he will let me. if i had had words to speak such a thing, i would have. but there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth. as if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. i did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong. “patroclus,” he said. he was always better with words than i.

I found myself grinning until my cheeks hurt, my scalp prickling till I thought it might lift off my head. My tongue ran away from me, giddy with freedom. This, and this, and this, I said to him. I did not have to fear that I spoke too much. I did not have to worry that I was too slender, or too slow. This and this and this! I taught him how to skip stones, and he taught me how to carve wood. I could feel every nerve in my body, every brush of air against my skin.