♡ ˚· @disgracedvessel asked:
Two years isn’t enough to make one accustomed to the damp and the dark. Abyss had been no more a home to Julius than a cave he might have found in the woods beyond the monastery’s walls, and he considered it nearly indistinguishable from the uncivilized wilds. But Ishtar is here now, and the shadows flee from her. It makes hell a little easier for Julius to stomach, and by now he’s made a habit of dragging her from one room to another as one might carry a lantern to fend off the dark, challenging every covetous and greedy look from the other rats in the sewer with the once-lost pride that had characterized his rule over the Grannvalean empire. It’s for the best, of course. By now, his savings have run out, and Abyss does not operate entirely on gold. Julius has pulled strings where he could to secure the tavern for a few hours one night, and it’s to this candlelit space that he leads Ishtar with his thin fingers over her eyes like a soft but frigid blindfold. The room has been cleared, each table but one shoved against the walls. Julius drops his hands away when they reach the centerpiece: a small, sturdy table covered in vibrant red cloth, with two chairs and a tarnished candelabra. “There are some people on the surface who still want you dead,” Julius explains, halfway apologetic, the rest a convenient lie. Truthfully, he does not know if Ishtar’s head is wanted the way his is, but to convince her that she must hide serves him in more ways than one. He smiles and steps away to pull her chair out for her. “So my gift to you this year must be restricted to this hateful place. You understand, I’m sure. I would be devastated if you were taken from me a second time.” He circles around to the other side and takes his own seat, lacing fingers together and resting his chin atop them. His eyes glint with the flickering candlelight, his smile is easy, charming, and still a little boyish. “What do you think, my dear? Privacy is the greatest gift here, I’ve found.” [[ // happy belated birthday from your broke ass king <3 ]
Twice now has this day passed in silence. It had never just been hers before, and now that it is, she has only known it as a day of mourning. Another year that she lives, another year that they do not.
She tells herself that she does not need to feel ashamed to let it be otherwise.
And, if she is rather honest, there is a joy in her veins now that has grown foreign in that time. It thrums with the promise of a future unlike the one she had been sentenced to, with the warmth of a love she had thought long lost. Her steps fall blindly, one after the other, never questioning the direction of the hands that guide her.
Because hands that love her could never lead her astray, and she knows better now than ever before that such is true.
Fingers fall away from her eyelids, though Ishtar is still slow to open them. It is dim here in the way that all of Abyss seems to be, devoid of color and drenched in shadow, but she sees none of that. To her, this is a room full of more light than she has seen since she was young.
"Oh, Julius..."
With the grace of a woman bred for it, Ishtar takes the offered seat. She watches her lover in the candlelight, eyes softened with affection and lips turned with a smile. Mother's voice still whispers instructions, coaches her in all of the ways she is meant to keep the prince's attention. She hopes she will be forgiven for where she forgets them now, where the goddess facade cracks to reveal nothing more than a girl in love.
"It is lovely."
And she means it-- with all of her bandaged hope, with her heart that has spent a lifetime aching. For there is hope and a heart left at all, and with their entirety she is certain that this is a start of something better.
"After all this time, you still spoil me so." A hand settles above her heart. "Thank you... There is no gift greater than to be here, at your side once more."
