@vonerde asked: ❝ it’s okay. it’s me. it’s me. it’s me. look. look…it’s me. ❞ for João
Unprompted, always accepting
Her voice is soothing, like wind through trees and rain dripping into the fountain— yet there's no comfort received. Though she attempts to comfort him, to get him to stop looking at the body within the murky waters he cannot. Blood coats his body, handprints along his torn white dress, hands stained— he's not the heart to even rinse, he had simply collapsed here beside the tree line.
The tears had not stopped since he'd killed him, a deep nausea rising in his throat as he watches the body float. He's thankful that he is face down, he doesn't think he could bear to see his face so still— pale and lifeless. His blood still seeps within the pool, coloring its picturesque blue in a startling red and his stomach lurches, though he manages to not expel the contents of his stomach.
He already had, after all, he doubts there's anything left.
"I......... I killed him." His voice is hardly above a whisper, as though he can't believe it— and in some ways, he can't. It feels like a dream, a cosmic joke and he's never felt more alone within this world— even as the goddess attempts to speak with him. He glances up at her, eyes large and concerned as they gaze upon him. The eye contact does not last before it's drawn once more to the still water. "I-I didn't..... I.........." His words fade out, and a sob breaks through his body, ripping through his throat and the lump within it.
Pain floods him, not from the injuries he'd sustained, but from the injuries he'd inflicted. He's crumbling from the inside out, hands shaking and though he's breathing his body screams for air. He wishes he had never woken up from his spell, that he'd stayed blissfully unaware, sleepwalking through lifetime after lifetime. Those who say it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all had been wrong— they had been wrong.
How selfish he was to allow Cassiel to drink from the fountain. They could have had years together but João was greedy as the men who came to his fountain. Years were not enough, he wanted forever. And now? Now they have nothing.
"What do I do?" He feels so small, so alone. Begging to a goddess that is not even his own, abandoned by his. Had she been gone all along, or had this last act been the final straw? Did she still walk this earth, or had she too passed on? He doesn't know, he isn't sure he wants to know. His hands shoot out suddenly, sticky with gore and certainly not appropriate for touching a goddess—and yet he clings to her wrists, fingers strong as steel. "Tell me what to do."
Even as he begs, he knows she doesn't have an answer for him, that there is nothing she can do for him.
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