#stormandozone

🥀

Avenai “You do what Oosra does. You... restrain. When you’re angry with me, when you have things and feeling you want to say, and spit, and get off of your chest about what’s happened. I wish you would just say it. I want you to say it. I want to deny you no freedoms when you’re with me; you are not my fucking subordinate.”

Leina “You’re fake in the way I can see through without even thinking about it. I’m not upset by that or offended, but you should do a better job. The bratty sweetness only works for so long while you put your talents into the spotlight like that. You can’t hide... whatever... the fuck that is if you’re parading it everywhere now.”

🌹

Avenai “I’ve missed you. I was gone and even before that, I felt... so distracted trying to keep up with everything new I have been learning in this world. I’m glad others have been with you, but letting everyone else do the ‘work’ is... lazy, wrong. I want to see you more as I readjust to things, and I want to just hug you like I used to be able to.”

Leina “Anything big between us, I’d tell you to your face. Or it’s just... obvious. There. Transparent. Maybe that’s just what happens when you have two very loudmouthed girls in one room. What could I confess? I guess I read your romance novels one time when you fell asleep at the bar. 

(Warning: Violence, blood, and death after the cut)

Thanks for the prompt, @stormandozone!

And she's there. Avenai.

Pushing through the crowd Regulus ignores the shouts of protest, the hands that grab for him. Rage pulsates through them all as they realize who he is, what he is; to all of these people he is synonymous with the end of their known world and his name has become an insult. He hates the way they say his name but he cannot blame them.

Regulus has done terrible things in the name of himself, and there is only one that he truly, honestly regrets.

Most of the faces he has never seen before, and so he pays them no mind. The ones he does he cannot bring himself to look at. Cannot bring himself to see their rage, their hatred, their sorrow. Their pity. All the emotions that he had fought so hard to keep out of his life have come together to paint a perfect picture of irony.

Several of them try to stop them but he finds his way through them, ducking under swords and spears and hands while running full tilt towards his target. He calls her name.

Avenai turns, and Regulus skids to a stop in front of her. For a moment they are the only two in existence. For a moment she is the only thing that matters. In on deft moment Regulus drops to his knees before her, bowing low until his forehead touches the top of her boots. They're old and ratty, so unlike Avenai that it makes his heart break.

Silence falls over the encampment as they watch.

"I'm sorry," Regulus says at last, his voice breaking as his shoulders start to shake with sobs he cannot let out. "Avenai, I am so, so sorry." He'll not beg for her forgiveness, that he does not deserve, but he will apologizes until the end of his days to his cousin. To the person he has only ever truly and wholly loved.

Murmurs in the crowd confirm what he already knew what would happen: people do not want his return, they do not want to fight under the same banner as the Black Eye, the Deadshot of Garlemald. But they do not matter. Only Avenai matters. If she damns him, he will be damned. If she demands his blood in payment for her suffering he will slit his throat and bleed out at her feet.

Regulus jerks when calloused fingers run through his hair, because suddenly he is back at the Palace awaiting the mercy of a man who has none. Will she want to kill him herself? He has never thought of Avenai as a vengeful person but then again maybe she never thought of his as a treacherous one.

Instead those fingers tug lightly as his hair, pulling until Regulus knows he should look at her. For a moment all they can do is stare at one another. And then:

"There is much to forgive, Regulus," Avenai smiles sadly. "And it will take time. Yet, I will have you at my side. If you mean it this time."

"Until my end." Regulus promises. This is one vow he will not break.

reading Liora has definitely been helping me! I don't wanna get too personal, being a stranger, but just know that your work is appreciated ♥

i’m really glad to hear that it helped. :> god do i know what it’s like to just be trying to get through it and i ALSO know how good it is to have something other than... everything else to focus on. hang in there. 💙

stormandozone replied to your post “hallo my name is fish, and i wrote liora skyheart.  i’ve never really...”

WHAT I've been following you for ages from a different fandom and now I find this out??? That's fantastic, you're amazing! Thank you for all your hard work!

You can, you know. You have the power. That is why they tremble. That is why they will bow.

Esme’s brows pinched together. Words drifted into her ear as though spoken by a lover. It made her viscerally uncomfortable, but she was compelled to listen. With every syllable, the circlet in her hands felt heavy in such a way that could only be explained with wealth. The spun gold. The chunk of amber, gleaming in the low light.

Look at their miserable lives. They live in mud. They live in squalor. They need to be lead. They need to be killed. They want you to do both. 

She looked up. Mlastynans peered at her curiously, surprise on their faces. Whispers traveled between them and children ran to go fetch whomever their mothers or older brothers sent them to get. Spread the news, they told them. She’s back.

You aren't alone feeling that way-- I actually do the same in my internal perception of self. I'm ME, not a gender or this body, just a consciousness

Yes, it’s like ‘I’m me, but I’m not only a body’