The dark is a cold and empty place.
Within the shadows that fill the Bastille, life does not grow. New occurrences do not emerge, light does not form, people do not become something better.
The dark is a cold and empty place, stagnant and muffling. It overwhelms what lays within it so that nothing can grow beyond it. It is a thing of death and of the end. Nothing new can grow in it.
And so, its prisoners can only ruminate on what they have. Where there is no future, the past is guarded viciously, held passionately to one’s chest. The dark may threaten to take that too, it may bite and tear at this thing that is not it, it may take bits and pieces away, but that only makes one guard it all the more.
The dark is a cold and empty place, stagnant and muffling, and it is interrupted by the quietest of breaths.
Are there screams? Are there pleas? Are there the rattling of shackles and the ringing of chains? Such noises once rang out loud, but they have become unnoticeable to him; a background noise as disregarded as one’s own breaths, the roar of waves, the whistle of the wind. They are one melody, and it is one he must hear everyday. Is it madness to find music in such a grating cacophony?
But a new sound interrupts his own.
Her footsteps.
Her breaths.
Her heartbeat.
He turns towards her far more quickly than he’d like. He stares at her for longer than he would admit, with more emotion in his eyes than he would dare confess, but it matters not what he would want because she can see it all.
Time is meaningless in this place. Yet how could he still feel the pain of how long she had been gone?
What little is still visible of his face hardens, like weak water into solid ice, his eyes the usual cold. And yet, he knows. He knows that she can see those cracks in the ice.
He turns away.
He takes especially longer to inflict his justice. He can feel her gaze upon his back but he will make her wait. He will not rush to her side like a needful beggar.
But as he continues his work, he hears another plea. It is of a familiar voice, and it is not coming from the cells. He hears a part of himself beg to go to her now. It screams and pleads like any other prisoner. He ignores the plea - but this one he cannot whip away.
It feels far too long, far past what should have been, when he finally, and slowly, turns towards her. He walks to her with a calm and confident manner. He comes to a stop before her, inches away from her, far closer than he should be, and he wonders if she is real or a hallucination. At that moment, it did not matter.
His hand twitches to grab her, to feel every inch of her was real. No - not yet.
His voice, even now as a deathly quiet statement, rumbles like the heavy waves below.
“Welcome back.”
Time is a barred cage, slotted bars that ensnare the mind, wreak havoc on her subconscious. No. Perhaps it isn’t time. Having ample time most certainly does nothing to help ease the acrid ache, but it can’t be helped. It’s never been time, it’s always been memories.
Thoughts and perceptions of those emotions she felt long ago. Emotions that have long since abandoned her, marooning her with what few sentiments she’s left to feel. Halved, easily. She has no longer need for joy, nor the righteousness she once felt. Mahsa found it difficult to look upon most she passed by with any sort of regard any longer. Most people only earned indifference, perhaps disdain.
It’s why she began seeking such alternative sources to feel. Feel something, anything. Even if that something is hatred or unkindliness, or perhaps taking some sweet reprieve in the downfall of others. A pastime that should perhaps evoke another emotion, guilt, but never does.
For some time, she wasn’t certain she was entitled to want. Perhaps it was some Godly hand, ruining her peace of mind down to shambles and leaving her bitter and alone. So countless time ago, she began her walkabout, wandering here and there, wherever the wind might blow her, in search of something. Never certain what.
It’s how she first met him after all.
And it’s what brought her back. A verbose amount of time later, months perhaps. So many days had passed that she had almost forgotten just how thick the macabre Bastille smelled. How the scent tended to linger; death, persecution, misery, and somewhere among it all, him.
She’d be lying if she were to claim she could ever forget him. The way each of her senses had absorbed a shred of him, from touch to scent to taste.
She watches him work with eyes that sting for a reason she can’t pinpoint. Nothing to do with the oppressive fog of the strangely comforting Bastille, or the death cries that permeate the halls and bounce off walls straight into the soul. It’s oddly soothing to see that he still toils. Soothing is perhaps too light a word, she’s utterly flummoxed just how much her souls calls out at the sight she’d perhaps gone too long without laying eyes upon. She releases a taxed breath that she didn’t know she’d be holding when he turns on her. It’s likely he noticed her sooner, she knows he would have.
He notices everything. In ways that should be discomforting, but had somehow become safe.
She hopes he won’t ask what brought her back; she does not know. And when he continues his task steadfastly, she waits patiently, because it’s to be expected. She knows him too well. A strange thought. Jarring but somehow, not to the extent it should be. He’s as he was when she left, not a hesitation or hint of disparage and it’s both positive and damning.
She feels a stab of something she can’t explain. Perhaps he hadn’t even taken notice of her absence? Aggressively, the stray, unwanted worry is pushed into the recesses of her mind; a thought that would require admitting that she cared and she isn’t quite ready to do that.
Ages pass before he comes to her but he does, and for a second, she forgets how dark and dank the world around them. How unexpected and unending it is; because he’s decisive and reliable in a way that numbs the scattered hateful thoughts.
“It’s nice to see you again.” The words are a bit too bare, genuine, and she fights off the urge to wince at herself. Perhaps she truly was away too long. “I didn’t expect to be gone quite so long, but it seems things are as they were?” Between us.
There’s a question on her voice, and a thinly veiled anticipation. That perhaps things could return to the way they were, before she managed to lose herself.
Straight face as she might have, it doesn’t stop her fingers from twitching to reach out, grasp at the familiar heat of him. She keeps them in check.
It’s funny; she always thought he seemed so cold, but it’s an illusion. The truth is, amongst the rotted, grotesque walls here, he’s the only source of warmth present. A warmth that she missed, a warmth she intends to soak up.
There are flecks of dirt and dancing shadows on the planes of his face, and she breathes in deep.
@theblackwarden