Call me by Y/N

Sickle in hand, he had reaped wheat from shaft. His mother had woven baskets for fish and for grain. His father had sailed home in the evenings laden with the day’s catch. Together they had lived a small and insignificant life.

He says this with a laugh. With a sigh. With wistfulness mingling alongside grief, wet in his eyes and trembling in the timbre of his voice.

You don't respond. In place of words that could never hope to reach across the gap of emotion and language, you cup his cheek in your palm. Time passes like that. Quiet and wounded.

Eventually your lover laughs and it's a soft sound. Full of apology. As though he's embarrassed to have wasted your time. It's no matter to you. The time would have passed anyways.

You tell him that you hope he can be insignificant once again. One day.

The hand at your back trembles and pulls you in close.

— The Deliverer had come to save you.

The Deliverer had come too late.

Trapped below the earth, you had tended to your flock. Your hands bloodied. Your legs bruised.

They had nuzzled into you. Trusting and innocent. Their dark eyes implicit with faith as you'd apologized. Your voice had been laden with tears and mucous.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Their blood had stained your hands. There had been no saving them. No way to haul three dozen injured sheep up the cliffside.

Alive. Not alive.

When the Deliverer had come to you, grief already shining in his eyes, you had asked him to bring you a blade. The sharpest he had.

He'd been shocked.

Did you not love your flock? Did they not love you back?

You had stared at him. His broken heart mirrored back in your gaze.

Did he think you would do this for any reason but love?

They had lain their docile heads upon on your lap and closed their eyes. The soft fur of their ears had tickled along the pads of your fingers as you ran each digit over them. Just as they had a hundred thousand times before.

You had called each by name. You would know them anywhere. By the musk of their bodies and the tender bay of their voice.

Darling.

Sweetheart.

Softest of hair and kindest of nature.

Most beloved of all beloved.

⟡☀︎⟡

When Flame Reaver catches you, it is in the home you have built with your lover. There’s a spare pair of shoes by the entryway made of thick Kremnoan leather. On the counter there are fresh vegetables picked just this morning. The curtain to hide off the doorway, bobbin lace twisted by hand, left open for the breeze.

He finds you standing on the balcony. Your gaze cast over the mountainside towards the sea. Behind you, Okhema is burning. Behind you the streets are running red. Behind you-

Flame Reaver steps through the doorway. You think that it’s a shame your lover never got a chance to break in those boots. Never made anything of the sprouts he had so excitedly helped nourished from seed.

You turn to see the bobbin lace, made of the finest of golden yarns, has been carefully pulled back over the doorway. Not a thread out of place.

Your name falls from Flame Reaver's lips and it is a sigh. It is a plea. It is a weeping.

You would know him anywhere. By the musk of his body and the tender bay of his voice.

⟡☀︎⟡

You had carried the weight of their bloodied wool upon your hands.

Sometimes you think you can feel the tack of their blood between your fingers where it had dried so many times. The way they had lain their heads into your palms and closed their sweet eyes. Their wool, like threads of sunlight, damp and dark beneath the weight of your violence.

Phainon flinches, his blue yes wet with tears. You speak to him softly.

This had to be done.

This was a mercy.

Your sheep would not live long. They would suffer if left otherwise. Illness and disease and hunger- all tragedies awaiting a helpless flock.

Better to be quick.

Better to be their final cruelty.

Together you had carried the weight of their still bodies up the cliff. Ropes and joists carefully bound together to lift them from the depths of the mountain. Ash had mixed with blood. The sand had wept scarlet.

Neither of you had spoken, though tears had fallen from the Deliverer’s eyes.

What a waste, he had mourned, as the two of you finally began to ascend - to join your flinted flock.

So many lives gone.

Not a waste, you’d reminded him and placed your hand upon his forearm. Still heavy with grief. Still tacky with blood. The two of you had stuck, unable to pull away from one another as he had stopped to look at you. Mourning and confusion in his eyes.

You had looked upon him kindly, if not with equal sadness.

Their wool would be shorn and spun.

Their meat boiled and eaten.

Their souls, each small and innocent and full of grace, beloved.

Not a single part gone to waste. Not a single drop left unsavored.

You had loved your flock, you told him. You loved them still.

Which was why your hand had not faltered as you’d committed your violent deeds.

They had lain their gentle lives beneath your palms in forgiveness- and in your love, you had not let them suffer. Better to let the sin of their blood spill over you than to let them suffer needlessly.

You could carry the weight of this.

You would love. And you would weep. And you would bear them forwards.

⟡☀︎⟡

You lay your head into your lover's palm. You close your eyes.