HERE COMES THE BOOM

DEATHLESS.

there are many forms ‘i’m sorry’ can take when words themselves fail to carry the weight of a guilty heart. one, a head bowed as eyes focus anywhere except tanned skin, warm eyes. two, her hands wringing together as she waits for when regret becomes a window that can show ilia her heart without saying a word. waiting. wary.

“ilia i, i —” how can she apologize when the sound of a bullet dodged still rings in her ears late at night? when each breath since that day has only come easier? she can’t. there’s guilt, and then there’s remorse. 

“you don’t have to anymore.” blake tries to form the words into a promise but so little seems certain in the wake of the fires. of the night he was the one that fled first. she can’t. this is no time for promises, but it is time for hope — one thing she’s learned how to hold in abundance since she threw her fate off a moving train.

DEATHLESS.

DEATHLESS.

“a curse is on her, if she stay — ” she’s imagining a boat drifting far, far away and the chance to lay down. to breathe a quiet rest at last. she’s imagining what he would look like if he stopped breathing. “ — her weaving.”

“but the interesting thing about the way the line splits. she’s cursed if she stays, but she’s cursed if she stops what she’s doing. so what do you think she does?” blake ignores the way he says ‘my love’ and instead continues her questions. her voice is tempered steel — him, the fire she had passed through to stand unbent before him now. she’s thinking of a boat untied from a dock, a train unhinged from it’s cars. she’s thinking about the courage it takes to rather die than remain.

DEATHLESS.

“have you never had one before? like, never ever?” she’s trying not to jerk her head around to stare in disbelief at pyrrha. fails and feels the braids come loose where they tangle her hair. oh well. it’s not like she had that much to braid in the first place.

“well, we have to have a pillow fight and eat popcorn and play pranks on each other. i mean, the last one might be a bit hard since we can’t blame it on anyone else since it’s just us but --- “ inhale, nora, inhale “ --- i mean if you say ren put whipped cream in my hand and tickled my nose i’d pretend to believe you, at least!”

DEATHLESS.

“only me?” she’s been told lies before and had half a heart to believe them, if only to entertain the dreams of a girl hoping for a place to call home. but she knows what the smell on his breath means and it reminds her too much of a place she’d left behind. the dreams of a girl with no home left. she’s believed lies before and they’ve broken her heart each time.

“not your family? those that trust you?” heels click across the floor until she stands so close she could touch him if she wanted to  ( she does — but that’s another story. one she’ll never have the heart to tell )  instead her eyes only stare up into his with all the walls she learned how to build in the absence of home. if her hands shift towards him it’s only to push him away  ( so she tells herself. but she’s never been one to believe lies )  “why is it only your weakness that you offer me, qrow? what about everything else? anything else?”

for you alone i will be weak. she doesn’t know what it means. when weakness exposed means manipulation, means defeat, means a throat bared and ready to be torn apart. does he mean to say his throat is hers? or does he mean he trusts her with it — with the blood humming beneath his skin and the knowledge that she could sink her teeth into him yet she doesn’t? do you trust me, qrow? she wants to ask but that isn’t something either of them can answer. it isn’t something that could ever be enough.

DEATHLESS.

then men are weak but she can only think of one which lacks a spine. who sees their warrior’s resolve as a burden and an inconvenience. who would try to take all their successes in his palm and crush them like iris petals. how much sweeter he’d feel for it and so they fight. they’ve always been fighting.

DEATHLESS.

“anywhere?” one hand cups her cheek so gently it may as well be a breeze.  ( he would never make her feel caged / closed in. if she knows only how to run he'll make sure she has no need to )  the other is in her hair and it doesn’t tangle --- instead he remembers his mother weaving beneath the desert sun. his smile is a confidence that masks his pounding heart and the tremble to his fingertips.

this close he counts her eyelashes and thinks of some stupid line about how if her eyes are gold like treasure then maybe he’s a scoundrel. a pirate hoping for just a glimpse of a glory brighter than any before.  ( but then it sounds like he wants to steal her eyes and that? that doesn’t fit too well in his narrative )  so maybe her eyes are just eyes and maybe he’s thanking every god in the sky for the chance to see them. and maybe his hands are shaking against her skin but maybe she’s distracted by the press of his mouth against hers.

DEATHLESS.

“were you ever?” she wishes that she could smile but her memory is lost to a time when he was younger and they sat in the dark of her room together. younger, before dinner meant a battleground and each word could be sharpened blade. his blue eyes lit by light of the glyph in cold marble and from it --- a summon. how they would watch it move and dance and there would be no expectations waiting at the end. 

she wants to reach out to him and remind him that her name should mean sister still. but who knows how jacques defined her in her absence. ( she can only guess with how whitley surveys her now. can’t fault him for the faith he has in his father still ). 

DEATHLESS.

you used to be the sun. he wants to scream but it’s no use in his dreams, where all his pleas and griefs are kept locked in his rib cage. you used to be a fire burning so bright i would burn myself just for a chance to hold you.

here he moves too slow to reach for her in time and his outstretched fingers form the shape of every regret he’s had since that night. first they look like her back, retreating to the tower to do what’s right and brave. next they look golden and shining, giving his aura to weiss to bring her back from the edge of the abyss where she teetered after haven. finally they’re just his hands. trembling where they should be strong.

i could have saved you. if death is cold then his life left this world when hers did because there’s no warmth to him now. only realization. he was never meant to fight because his hands could heal and he thinks of her alone on the rooftop. what he could have done if he hadn’t run. if he’d been strong like her fire. warm with her courage. if death is cold then they’re closer together than jaune realized.

i could have saved you.

stay safe, nora. he says when she has her hand on the door frame and it reminds her of their childhood. when his hand was on her arm, holding her back as they hid beneath the stairs to a stranger’s home. waiting for the storm to pass --- long before they knew just what they were able to weather.

you’re not alone. some nights his memories are too much like the monsters they hunt now. like the monsters of kuroyuri taking away everything they ever knew of home. forced them to redefine home as this: (pn.) lie ren, nora valkyrie. / (n.) synonymous with safety. and she talks too much most days but when his quiet becomes a different kind, she sings. poorly. but it’s easier to get lost in her off-key lullaby than the feeling of claws passing in front of his face. 

if there’s a magic to their survival it comes in the form of every smile he gives her. she folds their memory up like a napkin and slips it into her jacket pocket to pull out on the days when her fear becomes claws and red eyes. we’re gonna be okay. they could call him the moon for his quiet and they would be wrong. he’s every sun and star burning at the darkness that would have swallowed her whole.

you know, right? his lips on her head turn her heart into a dandelion blown by the wind. she could grow into nothing but flowers from his touch and if he’s the sun, then she’s the earth pulled around and around.  ( not for the first time she’s thankful that she doesn’t get dizzy )  you know?