(⠀ ♡ ⠀)⠀⠀⁺⠀⠀@bloodpinning.⠀₊⠀⠀closed starter.
the sun sheds its brightest rays gently upon the curves and contours that make up the boneyard for what it stands to become and dares to remain as today. nothing escapes the unbridled mercy of the sun or the reach of its light; fast, infinite, unsparing. it is not kind so much as it is thorough. it’s as if the sun takes everything in its path and claims it whole by painting them in heavy strokes of the golden light of hope, revival, and forgiveness, really laying it on thick.
in the sun, her hair is lighter, more rind than flesh, closer to the peel of a blood orange than the dark, bruised red interior of it. newer, deeper patches of freckles form constellations across her face and her skin. the green of her eyes catches the light in wave after wave until it’s thrown straight back at her, reflected and doubled, when she’s cradling the bottle in a gloved hand. she looks like someone who belongs in the magnificent warmth of the sun.
she hates all of it. the green light of forgiveness feels like hot iron on fragile wounds exposing the nerves when she’s in the darkness for so long — that, and the daydrinking doesn’t help much, either.
“for the umpteenth time —” she ripostes instead of responding, her mercurial temper making itself known before her eyes do, still having yet to meet lorna’s. “— i’m not going t’jump!”
siryn doesn’t mean to do it, that’s the worst part; a couple of unruly sound waves rattles loose through the fractures in her composure cracked by her anger, and the bottle vanishes over the cliffside. the echo follows a second later. it’s followed by the wingbeat of startled crows, scattering in a ragged burst of black shapes visibly distressed by the disturbance, the domino-effect of her folly.
the irony lands fast, too. humbling.
“not again,” a quiet sigh with the quietening of her voice, gaze tilting to reconnect with the sight ahead of her granted by the height of the cliffside. “anyway.”
a small mistake, and yet it feels worse. inevitable, and yet a choice. freedom from the crutch of the alcohol and from the clutch of morrigan’s manipulation has only left theresa alone to grapple with the sheer emptiness in her ribcage that only makes her feel more like a cadaver split open on the autopsy’s table, scrutinised and observed and catalogued and investigated for the cause — rather than a mutant who was saved by the collaborative efforts of her -
friends. theresa knows she hasn’t been a good one in ages.
knows she’s been smoke and falling beams and locked doors, knows she’s the house and the fire and the poor bastard sitting idly by the door. siryn takes the blame the way other people take shelter, gathers it all in and lets it collapse all on her, because that part feels familiar. controlled. inevitable. chosen. self-imposed. lorna deserves better than ash and apologies, better than someone who keeps burning the room as a safety measure. the least terry can do right now is not waste her time — what amount of time lorna’s going to be at the boneyard for, before new york pulls her away. inevitably. and it still feels sorely preventable.
“don’t let me hold ye up, lor,” theresa says, softer now, easy as breath, that old warmth slipping back into her voice, she almost sounds like herself again, like she’s talking about vermont and ice-cream in space again, about roads and old maps and all the places they might go, might’ve gone. no temper this time. the fifth stage of it, maybe, that bastard, grief; she’s accepted she can’t be what lorna deserves; a good friend, honest company, a peace of mind. “ye’ve better places to be.”
lorna’s the best person terry’s ever known, in this lifetime and the next, and so on. theresa won’t be the ashes clinging to polaris’ light, that’s a vow she makes to no one important.
