@zorkaya said: i will fall in love with you over and over again. + no matter how long it's been, you're mine. @ Solomon (YOU KNEW!!!! YOU KNEW ID SEND THIS!!!! is it the first time she tells the L word? yeah but shhh)
MEME: EPIC : ITHACA SAGA ( and did i listen to this while writing it? yes )
THERE ARE MOMENTS WHERE THE MASKS CRACK. When time splits open like a reopened wound and the old king shines. More often than not its moments of wisdom or displaced time. Sometimes it is not. Sometimes it is a ruler to enforce ; a pact master reminding his pillars that DESPITE THEIR HIGH RANKS IN HELL, they are on chains to him. Many of his pillars are happy but that does not mean all do not need a reminder. ( At the end of the day, they are demons. ) And it is a sight to see the blank, cold stare despite the gentle smile on his lips, towering over a demon forced to kneel on a seal with a soft murmur of " Don't make it so there's no alternative, Baalberith." And he isn't sure when Zarina arrived or how much she's seen, not between the display and Solomon's undisguised power now an intense pressure on the back and making the air thick with magic. It snaps him out of the flow - dullness replaced with recognition as he lets the demon disappear.
Solomon isn't afraid of Zarina's rejection. Not of him, not of his colder side - if anything there might be times she approves of that more with her own views compared to his generally merciful views. But there are facts he cannot escape ; thousands of years makes different sides show and slumber over the centuries. HIS BRAIN'S WAY OF COPING, he supposes, when death will not even let him sleep more than a few minutes in the chance his body is destroyed. He just wakes up again.
It's the fact he isn't always HER Solomon in the sense of the one she met and came to be involved with ; the lighthearted trickster in Devildom. It's not like trading masks so much as one trait taking the dominant lead. AND WHO WANTS THAT? You get involved with someone BECAUSE of that presentation. With time you might see other sides, embrace them too, but it's different for him. Sometimes it is Solomon the Hopeful, or the Trickster, or The King, or the Exhausted. Sometimes it's the Broken, the Gentle, the Passionate. All him but so different in the period - be it a few minutes or hours like this or long periods.
They've never labeled anything, but it still spills out like soured, oxidized wine that he hates the taste of. That he can't always be the silly Solomon she knows even with the other glimpses, and that there's times he has to be away - ( ideally never so long as the long break they'd had ) - but still he shares because she DESERVES that much. Deserves to chase the desire for a family that he knows she has, of someone who can stay the one she wants and change along side them as the years pass whereas Solomon will change regardless and bare witness to time's passage unchanged in flesh. Zarina's just staring and Solomon feels like the boy he never got to be, stumbling into a problem that wisdom alone cannot solve.
HE KNOWS SHE LIKES WHEN HE'S SELFISH, she's encouraged him to be greedy. He can do that. But stealing a future isn't greedy, it's cruelty. She could find someone who WOULD be the same, who could grow old along with her and a possible family. And he could still do family but he will watch her age and he will not. He can be greedy and he can be cruel, but never like that.
For a moment the silence is suffering.
Then it splinters and shatters apart in an explosive way that only later can he fondly say is so Zarina. Solomon's eyes go wide when she storms closer and yanks him closer, fingers curled like claws in the endless starry sea of his cloak as if to pin him down in the waves of time. Here, now, you will remember me. You will remember what I have to say. He has no chains to keep him there but he's rooted to the spot, blood in his ears and heart in his throat.
There's an earthquake in his chest as her words sink in, her eyes burning with an intensity as inescapable as the waves at sea ; that Zarina herself is a force of nature not to be trifled with. ( Not that he would dare. ) How often she's called him a fool - not out of malice but care. You know, you are so painfully human, Solomon. and I’ll accept you and only you. The words float back from memory, reminders he's still human. IT'S BECAUSE OF THAT HE WANTS HER TO KNOW HER FREEDOM. For all that he adores of this - of them - she is not bound to it or him. His vision blurs slightly and he blinks rapidly a few times while he gazes at her.
Finally his lips tremble with a weak chuckle, one hand lifting to brush his fingertips over her cheek with delicateness that speaks of delicate glass even when he knows she's made of tungsten. " You're often having to be the one to remind me of this. " Solomon murmurs weakly. His demons are adored, but they do not remind him that he is human. NO ONE WOULD WHEN HE HARDLY QUALIFIES AS HUMAN - NO ONE BUT ZARINA. His touch is gentle, revering as he caresses her cheek. " You'd put up with having to remind me of this? " He smiles even as his lips tremble and he still has to blink a few times to clear his vision.
She would, he knows that. If she didn't intend it, she wouldn't have said it. Funny how it is her that reminds him more than any other anywhere that he is human.
She'll accept him, ever side. A Herculean task in of itself yet one she'd declared of her own free will with all the confidence of someone who will not accept less. I will fall in love with you over and over again. Spoken like an oath that he would never ask of her yet she gives without hesitation.
When Solomon's gaze shifts back to her eyes, it's ancient and young, wise king and lighthearted trickster and countless other shades all blurred into one. " I already have for you. " If he hadn't, he knows he wouldn't react or respond the way he has. There will be times for poetic speeches and flowery words, but these words are raw in their weight and truth. A beating heart fresh and offered.
He doesn't try to pry her grip off of him, but pulls her closer, limbs pressed to limbs as he tucks her close as he envelops her. For a second he stays like that, before he tucks his head down lower to let his lips hover by her ear like coveted knowledge offered only to her. " I'm yours. " He agrees. " Without doubt, without hesitation. " Because he'd rather have this than not, to have tasted and lost than never at all.
He pulls back just enough for the fabric to strain and for her to tilt her head up before he presses their lips together. SWEET AND DEEP LIKE THE OCEANS, like time forgotten and abandoned. Words not yet spoken but will, emotions so pure language only shackles them, the ache and the love and relief. ( Because his willingness to let her go and refusal to cruelty of a stolen future does not mean he didn't yearn for it all the same. ) He kisses like an apology just as much a declaration of his affection, like a drown man saved and an adventure of the future for both of them. When he parts its only to breath, forehead pressed against hers and eyes shut to taken in the sounds of their breath and points of contact and a freedom in his chest.
