@etroaed : ❝ if you say yes, i promise to love you more than you have ever been loved. i will give you everything you ask, i will be everything you need. just say yes. say you will. ❞
𝐚 𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞 , he existed in a reality barely outside of her own, never ending lines running parallel — their lives overlapped over and over again, and when she was younger it seemed so necessary to deny it to herself that many of those were accidents, that there was no wish in her to truly come to bevelle only for a chance to meet the kind gaze, the most tender out of the entirety of the city whose maliciousness was hiding in plain sight. she hid behind causality, and eventually their roads lead to different shores. years have gone by, and her return was not made in whispers, but loud and clear by the people that loved their high summoner returning to her father’s path — the day she returned, he was there waiting for her. the giant gates of bevelle had nothing on the intensity of him, his refined figure standing tall, the line of his lips casting a shadow, as if he were to say something, anything. last they had met, it was years prior, and her robes spoke of someone else, of being a new person — but that day, she presented herself as high summoner yuna, her father’s emblem sewn onto her long sleeves, and even if she was in the home of her old god, the faith he was asking her to persevere was still long gone. baralai did not bow in the way yevon had taught them, and neither did she, they stood as towers connected by a bridge: their lingering gaze melting in each other, words a simple afterthought.
word ran rampant of lady yuna’s distress in the few following months: she would barely see anyone in her late father’s mansion wherein she was residing, spending days wondering what was her purpose of being in the sacred city if the last summoner had no say in it, no dent to its wavering belief — while many felt a sense of pity for her, only one would show compassion. the praetor would have kindness in his heart to have a thought for her, and hers would grow with the warmth of it. once, it was a white flower at her doorstep with a carefully written note, words of encouragement, of faith and care, but nothing about it was about yevon or its following — he had shown worry for her condition, and in return she met him the following days, once, twice, again and again for her soul saw it fit for its rehabilitation, and each time it felt shorter than the previous. their parallel lines finally crossed, timidly so, and she worried for their long lost god sitting at the table with them — he did not, but her faith shifted, and suddenly the light she stood in while the praetor, no, baralai stood next to her felt like the presence of Him itself.
❝ you have loved me before, ❞ she thought to have forgotten the art of smiling, of allowing the soul any rest. but she has been wrong about many things before, and this is one of them. ( when i was unlovable. ) her figure shifts as truth is spoken, her fingers gently cradling his honest face, gaze lingering along his tender lines, and the silence raptures her as heterochromia melts. the sun-soaked heart of hers sings once, a beat faster, desperate for liberation and she swallows it down, but not quite — the sun beckons and she follows, as her forehead presses gently against his, now two bodies one and eyelids shut themselves to the world. ❝ you must know the answer, surely, ❞ her voice is a mere whisper now, a shared secret between their enkindled souls, and her fingertips brush along his cheek. ( i have loved you before. ) the high and mighty lady yuna’s frame shrinks in his hold, regressing to the woman she once wished herself to be and could not, were not for the comfort of his presence.
a man knows her sadness and takes it to the river, lines forever destined to meet, ❝ i will. ❞ and i've loved you once and i'll love you again.
