šÆļøThings the fatui would never say to your face
Ż(except maybeā if they were dying. Or worse, you.)Ż
ā Just a small note: this post was written with a gn!reader in mind. The āgirlhoodā line in Signoraās part is metaphoricalāsymbolic of vulnerability, seen through her lensānot meant to imply or specify anything about the reader! My apologies for not clarifying sooner. Take care, and thank you sm for reading ā¹š¹
''You remind me of the human I buried to survive.''
You remind him of something sun-warmed and pure. If the gods had been kinder, you were someone he could drink tea with in a sunlit herbarium. If he had met you before he lost everything, he might've asked you to become a part of it.
He watches you with the same bitterness of a man who once begged the stars and got nothing back
Honor is everything to a man like him but you've smiled and for the first time, he wondered losing an army for a flicker of light was such a tragedy. No one will know. He will take that silence to grave, strapped in armor.
"Iāve recreated your nervous system in glass and broken it seventy-two times. Still not enough."
He dissected every kindness you gave him and labeled it ācontamination.ā Heāll never say it, but he studies you like an unexpected variable.
He has your laugh recorded. Reversed. Slowed. Studied. He plays it at midnight. You sounded like a child, once.
''I am alone but not with you''
She wants to take you and put it in her pocket; folded and touched shut like a charm before a massacre.
From the places she's usually perched on, everyone below looks like insects. So she wants to keep you foreverāin case the war forgets to.
''I don't think I know how to keep people without owning them''
She's scared to treat you different than others, even if you'll never hear her say it. Because admitting means guilt, and guilt means you're not just another dog she picked off the street. Because domestication is just another kind of leash.
She still hides small bottles of poison between your perfumes. Maybe that's love, in her language.
''I like how you're too old to be this naive. Foolish child''
He wants to scare you. Because if you're afraid, it means youāre wise.
If youāre smart, youāll stay close. And if youāre closeā¦ Wellā¦ Youāll learn that sometimes, monsters teach you how to surviveāby making you surviveĀ them.
''If I had a heart, I'd rip it out and serve it on your plate. Or press your ear against my chest so you can listen to it beat for you.''
His tongue is venom and he speaks in curses and snarled comments. No one likes him for it. But his greatest wish is for you to come back; still smiling, hair wet and your hands cupping his after the storm passes. As if there is something human in him to hold.
''I envy the dolls. They get to be held by you''
She speaks your name with the same mouth that bit your wrist red. She watches you laugh and wonders if she could peel your joy off your skin and wear it like a coatājust for a moment. Just to see if it fits.
Every time you speak without being asked, she pictures tuning your vocal cords out of existence but leaving your hands untouched. If she sighs around you, don't mistake it for exhaustionā itās restraint.
āYou remind me of myself before I realized softness is a liability.ā
Rosalyne wouldĀ neverĀ say it aloud, but she sees her younger self in the way you linger in doorways, one foot in girlhood, waiting for approval. She almost warns you to run. But saints and women die first. And you're too good at lingering in doorways.
āI was afraid youād look at me like everyone else does. So I made sure you looked up to me instead.ā
He made you depend on him. It was easier than being vulnerable. He wanted to see gratitude in your eyes, not judgment. So he bought your silence, your presence and your shampooā if you smelled like comfort, maybe youādĀ feelĀ it. Maybe youād forget to look at him long enough to see the fear.
He didnāt mean to buy your love.
But now that's his, he polishes it daily.
āI worship The Tsaritsa, but I dream of you.ā
He hopes you never see the parts of him that enjoy the killing, not just the chase. Heās covered in mud, not blood; and he's quiet because there were more toy orders than usual, not because he had to walk through children to kill the father. It's what he tells himself.
And when he dreams, your hands are clean.
