thank you destiny! ā” i was about to say it was hard to choose for who but then i had an epiphany, meaning this is quite a reach regarding the prompts but oh well
[ entwine ] for one muse to hold the otherās handĀ + [ sacrifice ] for one muse to get hurt protecting the other ā juliet & lucifer. (& solomon.)
It flashes past his eyes, this memory of life gone by.
Of hers, not his. He still remembers perfectly, each smell and sound and sight, burned into a thousand year-old mind.
It started as she had bartered entrance at the gate. He hadn't been informed, not right away, but soon the wasteland, the ash and dust and bleeding skies, began to smell of blooming buds, of fruit and filtered air.
The scent had made his teeth feel strange, a pain that traveled down into the bone, then up and up and up, through flesh and blood, into the blinded eye of God. A father always watches.
Soon he learned that unlike him, she cannot remember; so he bears her burden too.
He never speaks of sunlit heavens, of ancient trees or bitten apples. No hinting words, no please remember, no this was your fault, too. He envies the magician. The secret that he keeps is one half of a whole, a rib ripped out, the one she seeks the missing piece.
He had watched them then, among the fruit and filtered air, under the sunlit heavens right below the ancient tree. He had watched her bite the apple, then had to watch him bite it, too. This isn't what he wanted. He had watched them stand before the blessed court, had watched him hold her hand and bear the verdict, too. For dust you are, to dust you will return.
Then, of course, the gates were closed. Held hands were torn apart, and their secrets had been taken. One bone snapped in two, scattered all across an empty earth.
Soon he learned that unlike him, she cannot remember; to this day he wishes it had been his hand that she held.
