#celyssena

Celyssena perks up, light from the window behind her illuminating none other than Cadence. Speak of Sargeras and he would appear.

She shakes her head; “No, I’ve got it... I can do it myself.”

Cadence smiled softly, taking a few steps towards her; “You do not have to anymore.”

Celyssena sat the needle down. Purses her lips. She doesn’t know why that statement makes her want to curl up in a tiny ball and cry. She makes a valiant effort to fight the urge though, merely covering her face.

Cadence is patting her uninjured shoulder, she didn’t even notice the other woman had closed the distance between the two of them; “It is alright.”

She didn’t even realize she was crying until Cadence hugged her, taking special care not to jostle her half-stitched arm.

“Fucking Aspects,” Celyssena chokes out, wrapping both of her arms around the tiny half elf.

“It is alright,” Cadence soothed, stroking her hair.

For some reason, Celyssena found herself parroting the words; “It’s not.”

“It is,” Cadence quips, “You do not need to be strong every minute of the day. You can trust us, we are your friends.”

Celyssena sniffles for a moment, thinking she might be able to stop crying. She didn’t. For a short while, actually, she sat and cried in Cadence’s arms, face pressed against her friend’s shoulder.

Eventually, the two women come apart. “Let me see your shoulder.”

Surprisingly, the needle hadn’t moved far from where she’d set it, despite the thread connecting it to her arm. Cadence plucked it off of the windowsill, exchanging it for a new, clean needle from the suture kit before sewing Celyssena’s arm up the rest of the way. 

“... Thanks,” Celyssena mutters, having fallen silent, her voice still a bit raw from crying.

You recoil, shaking your head as you turn back to face your fiance. Jaehaerys laughs as if you’ve just said something hilarious. You lean closer, trying to study his face. There’s something off about it, about him; you just can’t seem to put your finger on it.

“What’s the matter, Cel?” His hand laid on top of your’s, grip gentle. A lover’s grip.

You shake your head; “Oh, nothing I was, um-” You cast your gaze out once more at your surroundings, now wholly unfamiliar. Was there no end to this grassy knoll? 

“What?” Jaehaerys’ grip tightens; “What is it?”

“Jaehaerys,” You try to pull away. He grips harder; “Jaehaerys that hurts-”

“Does it?” You look back just in time to watch the skin slowly melt off of his face, exposing muscle and bone that grotesquely pulsed as he talked; “I’m so sorry--”

You scream, but you make no sound. You try to pull away, but his grip is iron. You kick your feet, futility trying to find some way to get away from this ghoulish image of your fiance.

“Celyssena-” There’s blood on your wrist from where the skin on his hands began to dissolve and slough off the bone. Yes, the air was burning, it had been so hot. Almost too hot for you, but certainly too hot for-

“You left me!”

You can’t look at his face. You could still remember the look of terror as the gore that used to be his arm had come off in your hands. As you flew away. As you cried and vomited for Aspects-knew-how-long, while your sister patted your back and assured you everything was ‘going to be okay’.

Syla isn’t here anymore. Now you’re alone with this grim spectre, this grotesque reminder of who you failed to save.

“Please, Jaehaerys-” You mumble, punctuated with a sob, “Let me go-”

You struggle backwards, tugging him with you; “Like you let me go?”

“Stop please ju-” “Like you let me go?”

The question echoes around the hills that made up your nightmarish dreamscape. It bounces off of every surface, every time the volume of the words rising and rising until it becomes a screaming crescendo in your mind and you cry; “Yes, yes! Just let me go!” Just as you tear your arm free-

And tumble head-first out of bed. You struggled with such a force you’d managed to drag part of the comforter and a pillow off with you, not that it cushioned your head at all. You lay there for a moment, back flat on the floor, legs still somewhat splayed across the bed. 

Deep breaths. You close your eyes and see Jaehaerys’ skinless face.

“Holy shit Spitfire.”

For once, it’s Sylrin who comes to your aid after a nightmare. Normally, it was the other way around. You didn’t even hear him moving, it was as if he’d materialized beside you and scooped you up into his arms, holding you close.

You press your face into his bare chest, feeling his warmth, smelling his smell. He doesn’t smell like burning. He smells of mint and something else, something earthy. You wrapped your arms around him tightly and began to cry.

Sylrin doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t have to. Instead he readjusts his grip on you, pulling the whole of your person into his lap, where you promptly fold your legs up to your chest. You want to be as small as possible.

After a while, you begin to calm down. You’d cried to the point where you couldn’t produce tears anymore anyways, and occasionally you would hiccup. It felt childish. You unravel, little by little, from the tiny ball you’d made yourself into.

As you unfurl, Sylrin’s hands migrate, no longer cradling you. Instead, you sit in his lap, one of his hands gently rests on the back of your neck, stroking the skin with his thumb. His other arm was thrown across your now-outstretched legs. Your head still lay on his chest, listening.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Sylrin’s voice, low and steady, is a welcome sound in comparison to the nightmare shriek that still rattled around in your head. 

You could, it had been years; but now the wounds sting as if they still fresh from their violent reopening at the hands of your subconscious. You shake your head.

“Just.. same shit, different night,” You mutter, your voice shaky.

Sylrin presses a kiss to the top of your head; “I know the feeling.”

“I don’t wanna go back to bed,” You mumble, as if it were relevant. 

He lifts his hand off of your neck and strokes your hair; “We can stay like this if you want.”

You keep your arms wrapped around his torso, anchoring yourself to him, like a boat in a storm. The whole scene hearkens back to the first time he sought you out after a nightmare. He appeared in your doorway, white-faced, asked to come in with the most level voice you’d ever heard. You’d wrapped him in your arms and your blankets like you and your bedding was a shield. Now, he is your’s.