#with: 11fatui

Many were the times glossy eyes peered up, too far up as to crane a child's neck, to seek refuge in those rose of Hers. Each glance, each confession more hardened than the last, more eager, less fazed; he's seen and he's heard, but more importantly: he has done. Small hands had carried the weight of sins that barely fit in his palm —  by the Seven, it was just a kid!

Age didn't agree with his strength, it agreed with the crack of a voice which pitch hadn't been evened yet, but which knew of the mortality of everything. Including the Gods. ❛ Who  will  I  say  goodnight  to  when  you’re  gone ? ❜

KHIONIYA   “...” the age of stone is a darkened thing / steeped in one layer gone over until erosion eats its fill. it is the bedrock beneath a glacier. it is the stark, unyielding backbone that threatens to snap if it cannot remain as it was — & eventually it shall. stone is moulded into a natural death. the little thing in front of her cannot know that kind of age.

           the unease that is bred into skin- mica /            flecks filtering into her many, many layers.

     not that he can think of an end to an existence that ought seem to him historical. but he imagines the anguish of loss—without chilled silence to speak into & be known by.

odd. & odd things please.

a blink. the first since his silly, smarting words.

orphaned child. ever poised on the sagging fencepost before the fall; & how trivial that fall will be. few things will mourn a boy’s grief. goodnight. to whom? a world full of people, please- but these are not answers to a child who curls his fist, at times, as tightly as can be in the furs that flow within reach.

“...”

skff, tp. those furs billow around the crouch she drops into. small, innocent thing stained with more blood than he knows where to go with. ( why should he? why should he, when she cannot fathom the purpose of blood on terribly small hands? ) hm. he is picked up.

—under the arms, hauled up to a set point above eye-height where the sunlight paints his face a wondrous welcome. “...” what, indeed? is he trying to find the answer — or is this one of those questions for the sake of its own existence? “...then you will say goodbye to me instead. every night.”

KHIONIYA  it aches. ( of course it does. you knew better. ) capability equals responsibility; a harbinger's return to the nest is a matter of touch & go. she makes it so.         pale fingers thread through copper that gleams gold. "wait." she & the gears of the world that turn in perpetuum.

it is the only part of him looked at closely; beautiful hair that has changed the least over the years. that little body has grown to be taller ( still little to her ) - yet more is expected of it. a thing to be nurtured, cradled gently in her palm- sent out to war.         it bleeds so easily. & that is not all:      it freezes easily, tears easily, drowns easily, starves easily, loses & loses & loses parts of itself so easily-

why then is it so hard for her to part with any piece of him?

"jashenka." they are so much less weak. he throws himself into the maelstrom where no certainty exists except loss. he, little one- the littlest thing / reared by her.       for war. ( for love. ) for the love that goes to war, & now she wishes she'd kept him all to herself; a child as it should have been.

that oversight feels like such folly now even though it were the last real part of that old conviction. the only one that will-( would )-not waver.

the world is white, outside. it is also the world: where jashenka- what her people stalk into to be killed by. ( & he is stronger than most; & she is weaker than most. will he stop loving her, if it proves he'll have to make her keep this promise? little boy. & he'll do it, too. ) she wishes to turn away from the windows. from that finality that breeds anxiety - "come," but it is huskier than a command. something thickens her voice & begs to be forgiven for that- "just for a little while longer."

minutes are little lifetimes when spent with mortals. it's a quiet truth that can pin her to a single moment / root her to a spot so small that when it encompasses her entirely, she gets to select exactly what becomes the whole world instead. would that he'd let her have a few more, instead of striding so readily toward the doom she spells out for him.        how vain it is to weaken like this        when she has already made him promise.

KHIONIYA 

the faint tippity tap of fingers’ tips alights on the boy’s temple. feathery copper threads part then tangle round her touch- a sensation far more welcome than the slow tug away of her furs has been.             a soft coo slips forth. “malysh...” there are things that need doing.     tiny, a speck of a noise in the throat of her little one. a pale lip is bitten as conflict plays out in its tug of war / a visceral thing, making taut her core & light the mind.

         defeated, the tsaritsa sags     back into her throne.