&if i could dream
j-onqui:
She forgets.
There is a part of him that is human, too. Small as it may be. Neglected, tucked away in a corner of his essence, forgotten even by himself. But it exists, it lingers, and sometimes, it fights its way to the surface.
And why is there a crack in her voice, a hint of despair in her protests? Why should she protest? Is this not an honour? A mortal worthy of the favour of one of his kin. Not for her beauty, or her pureness, not to be swept away to their realm; not because she has become enchanted by the other world & its fair creatures; but for precisely because she is none of that. She should be grateful, she should be delighted:
Look at your hand, look at what power you hold. Look; I have come back for you.
He moves closer, much closer; like how he always looms over her, lips so close his breath brushes against her skin, but for once there is no inhuman shimmer in emerald eyes, nor do his lips curve into his typical, playful smirk. He appears – for once – serene, solemn, almost human. His voice does not sing, but whispers. Softly, hoarsely: “And what am I, if not impossible? Am I not both? Mortal and immortal? Did you forget of my nature?”
A dry laugh. He does not often remember this part of him, either. The part that feels as though it may have a soul. Almost. Not enough to give him a heartache, but an itch, persistent and annoying enough to drive him back. Never for long. But return he does.
“I would think your kind would be honoured in this situation, not unsettled. How peculiar you are.”
Power never impressed Miwa. She’d colour power a vein that, tapped, unfurled in a cruel game that played the player rather than the reverse, and the moves were ancient cliches you could trace in epics and gods and history the world over. But when the stale air stirred about Fintan and he surged through it like a current rolling the tide to rear up before her-- that was something other, though she scowled to try and break it. Fleeting, fickle, fae; she wasn’t letting yearning gorge her throat again, she’d already accepted-- she had her role, like air, a medium to pass through sustained. Damn his fancies, damn--.
But Fintan’s passion didn’t shatter on her staunch posture, couldn’t because he, quite simply, yielded in a gentle shower. Each, breathy word expired with a wet kiss on her face, blurring the boring, solemn rite his expression formed between knit brows and the frown-line marring that one side of his face-- then he chuckled almost sombrely, and her heart lurched a sob into her throat she near choked on, and it was only then she realized the splash of him cursed tears into her eyes.
Compulsively, she ducked under his probing expression and rammed into his rod-reed frame, hiding her face in his chest. Trembling all over so she could barely squeeze him. ‘Just your r--respect was enough s--so...?!’
She took a shuddering breath to try and steel herself. All her poise, her equanimity, they deserted her until she could only smear her face all over his shirt. As though her doubt could suffuse him like his faith had the whole air, so suddenly: a potency, connection-- impossible, impossible. Who did he even see here to honour? Smoke, she’d become smoke, there was no-- she was ashamed even of how she dwindled when he’d left...!
‘I don’t understand, what you see-- but t--hank you-- thank you, Fintan. Or fuck, no, I don’t understand--!’