#oftheothcrworld

[allxthatxisxlost]

[ @oftheothcrworld { Talharin } continued from here ]

“What are those words…? Where do they come from?” Talharin’s voice was a wondering murmur as he stood at the Citadel window, staring out at the cold night and the city below, lights gleaming from within the mountain’s ancient crater. “I cannot place them, but it feels as though I may know them.” High Loft, below them, was sleeping peacefully, no one still about in the streets save those Guardsmen unfortunate enough to have the night shift, and the occasional drunkard stumbling out of one of the cities many pubs at the sound of the closing bell. Talharin thought that the city was at its most beautiful in the middle-night, long before the morning chorus of the birds. THIS IS WHAT I DEFEND, he thought, THIS IS WHAT I FIGHT FOR. PEOPLE AT REST, WITHOUT A CAUSE FOR WORRY. Talharin would RESISTfor this reason, no matter what they did to him. He would resist, if he could save but one person from ever having to be afraid. @ALLXTHATXISXLOST

Where once there had been uncertainty and reluctance, even perhaps the smallest amount of fear, there are no such deterrents now, and Talharin would soon find himself with her arms loosely snaked around his waist and her body snug against his back.

“I think I heard it once in a song, and I suppose I never forgot it,” she answers, lips barely brushing feather-light against the small amount of skin near the base of his neck, exposed by his current attire, before pressing a gentle kiss there. 

For a moment, she simply allows that to suffice, for the stillness of the night to reign… at last, however, she speaks again, her voice quiet.

“… It helps. Sometimes… When you’re away. When I want you here.”

When the nightmares of her own past get the better of her and she wants him there to reassure her that she is safe. 

When she wakes up screaming and has to focus to feel that ever-present connection between the two of them. To feel his heartbeat in time with hers. To know that he is alive. 

When she starts awake in the middle of the night feeling his pain and wants nothing more than to hold him close and keep him safe.

When nothing that she wants matters because he might as well be a world away again and to go to him might risk far more than she would ever be willing to gamble.

Unbidden, tears spring to her eyes, a few silently slipping down her face, and she presses herself just a little closer and holds him just a little tighter, as though by that alone, she could protect him from all those who would harm him and from all of the harms he would take upon himself to protect others…

[allxthatxisxlost]

“For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?” - Talharin

Meme: Shakespeare Edition

@oftheothcrworld { Talharin }

“That you understand,” she answers without hesitation.

“I don’t know that I would necessarily call it a ‘bad part’. But then, I don’t think you have any. Not like you think you do, at least…” 

How clear it is that she means those words. As much for them having been uttered––for even one in the greys betwixt Seelie and Unseelie cannot lie––as for the way she looks at him when she says it before looking away once more out at the stars. It’s easier to speak that way. Easier to say what she thinks when she can say it as though he isn’t there.

“Only that… You’ve lived in the darkness, too. You’ve done what it takes to survive and you understand… So I suppose it was how we’re alike…” 

Her brow furrows then, perhaps in focus as she attempts to put her thoughts together in a way that will make sense to him. 

“And yet… also for how we are different. For all the shadows that have danced around you, for all the monsters who have hurt you, for all of the times I see you wonder if you are a monster……”

Only a moment later, she turns to look at him and there again is that gentleness that she only ever shows to him.

“… You’re not. You’re not of the darkness; you simply choose to exist in it to give others light and hope. You’re not a monster; you simply pretend to be to keep others safe… No matter how scarred or broken and pieced back together…” 

“You still have a beautiful heart… You’re still beautiful…”

There is no quip that follows. No joke. No smirk. Only dark eyes that are a little misty and full of sincerity.

[allxthatxisxlost]

[ @oftheothcrworld { Talharin } continued from here ]

“Precious little time it is, too,” murmured Talharin, “when all is considered. Even those like ourselves truly have only a SHORT DANCE in the sunlight, compared to the stars and the trees and the infinite void.” Wistful as his tone and expression might have been, he still afforded her the faintest smile. A saddened little smile, a smile full of GHOSTS. Softly he held his hand out to her. “Our time on this planet becomes vastly more bearable when we have someone to share it with, I find. I have you…I have certainly noticed an improvement.” In the world, or at least his perspective of it – and in himself, too. @ALLXTHATXISXLOST

For one with so much darkness to his name, such beauty there is in his words… in him. If only he could see it, see himself, as she does……

She takes his proffered hand, matching his smile with one of her own, perhaps a little less tentative, a little less melancholy, if only for the fact that he is here with her. 

And then she draws closer to him and reaches out with her free hand, surprisingly gentle fingers brushing over the unscarred half of his face as she looks up at him, her expression turning more serious yet still soft.

“Strange as it may seem, though I never thought I would say it…… I don’t know where I'd be without you. With you, everything is better. With you, even I’m better…” Just the slightest hint of a smirk appears and her eyes take on a playful light though the warmth never leaves them. 

“–– And, if you knew how painful it was for me to utter something that ridiculously sappy, you should know exactly how true it must be.”