two weeks after she can move again without the pain lodged in the side of her skull, off-balanced in her ribs, cid unlocks his solar door——there's a lecture and a half about trust, about making her way through life the way she might want, about dreams that are attainable if you reach hard enough for them, but cid is a sentimental fool and she thinks mostly he's tired of finding his room in a mess when he returns, the curl of her mouth self-satisfied when he picks papers off the floor the dozenth time.
it's petty. it's spiteful for no other reason than to see his exhaustion pull at this crow's feet harder than it used to, every act of her punitive resistance a way to soothe the hummingbird trappings of her heart. she doesn't know this cid.
in waloed, in the space between not knowing he was leaving and knowing, she'd catch him up on those high-rise balconies with cigarettes in his mouth, the shadows to him long and stretched in the lean of his body. he couldn't be interrupted then, and he couldn't be interrupted even less when he was five jugs of mead in, his eyes glassy but as if saying they were never quite glassy enough, laughter a spilt stain on wooden grooves of pub tables.
she did intrude on him once and only once——took the cigarette right out of his mouth. "if it bothers you so much," she said, her tongue full of smoke, "why not just leave?" as if you would was the implication behind it, though sometimes she did think on the still water days of it just being the two of them——how little she had known of the world and how much he had seemed to know the whole of it, the palms of her hands full of blisters and camp firelight punctuated by the worst cooked food you had ever tasted, his electric outline leftover static in her breastbone.
she didn't know then how close she was to the breach in his hull; the very start of all their wreckage, driftwood on an ashen beach. back then, he just treated it like she caught him in a secret, his hand palming his hair in that usual exasperated way of his, always half into a complaint before knowing better. "what, and give up this dream we both care so much about?"
when he hunted around for another cig, she had taken that one too. there was always an affection to him a hair's breadth from his annoyance that she always dared to pull out——never tiring of seeing it there, and him never tiring of showing it. the conversation didn't really matter to her as much then as disrupting the thundercloud of his thoughts, to have that untroubled, warm and drowsy air back into the slots of her fingers.
benedikta thought that weight to him was war. she thought she could soothe it out of him as he soothed it out of her, gingerly tracing the knobs of her wretched, flight-weary spine.
"no more running?" she had murmured when they had both still believed in barnabas' promises——while he was still a king with a brightly-shining, comet-streaked dream, and they could taste the starlight.
"no more," cid confirmed, in that constant deep grumble of his, her eye of the storm. she should have told him she loved him on that day more than any other, when they could taste the sea-salt in the air and there was mud on both their boots and the drizzle had matted all of benedikta's hair to her cheeks. the day had been innocuous, but that was kind of the point, sandwiched between points of no return and youth-like naivete.
but she didn't, and she couldn't, for a thousand little reasons but mainly: how his gaze was forever locked on some point over the horizon, and hers on his profile, stubbled with the casual carelessness of travel and that self-assured knowledge he knew his smile could do all the work.
so she just grabbed his hand instead. "still not tired of that, are you?" he said, chaffing, but his fingers had curled around hers.
at the hideaway, cid comes less than he goes, which isn't all that different to when they had both been laboring for waloed, red-cheeked and weary and grateful to collapse into each other on the rare chances they were both home at once. now, however, benedikta is always stuck waiting and resentful towards the peace he carries, her one familiar tether even though there are parts to him she no longer knows.
there is less callousness to him. his shoulders buckle like they used to, but he doesn't carry that all alone——he's happy to have his knees bent, shoulder to shoulder with his charity cases, an open dam overflowing with belief. she shadows him at first, pinched and taught with suspicion, until they're looking up at her too with that undiluted hope so palpable she bites and chews and spits it back out at them.
she doesn't want to be here. she can't be anywhere else. cid is all beseeching eyes and self-sacrificing and he's a person with a hundred people to soothe his ills now, and hundreds more to protect. ultimately, it all boils down to, she's not an irrefutable, untouchable and integral existence to him anymore.
he's doing just fine——and she's breaking and shrieking and sleeping in minutes. "i'll bear all your rage, benedikta," he tells her, long after the lacerations have turned red along his arms and his skin is flecked between her nails, "if that'll soothe you."
it doesn't. it does. it's an unspoken, 'as long as your rage doesn't bleed onto someone else', so she bites into him so deep its his blood dribbling down her chin. she grapples with his large immoveable body and wishes he'd be even the slightest bit malleable. "it won't," she doesn't promise but she swears and she feels him sigh beneath her, sagging.
see, though, that her promises and swears mean nearly nothing——she's fundamentally a liar, after all, and when she's stopped wearing bandages and the scars are all new, freshly healed red flesh, she finds herself weary from resistance, her flashes of outrage lapsing into a strange watchful silence.
they all treat her like a livewire. they should. she fears if she is touched again she might explode, the shrapnel she leaves behind a festering wound of her existence. but cid is stubbornly accepting as he is, as he always has been, and maybe there are things that won't change, threaded into him as tightly as the canvas of his wide open arms.
"apple?" he offers, off-handed, the infamous thing postured precariously in his fingers: and it's a silent peace offering; it's her insurmountable walls letting light seep through.
she takes his apple. rips it from his hand even, snapping it from his hands and pressing it to her mouth before she can have second thoughts. and it's bitter. it's so bitter, with the slightest tinge of sea-salt. "this tastes like shit," she mutters, but there are angry tears in her eyes and she eats it down all the way to its core.
all these years, and she will never tire of his barking, sloppy laughter, the sun streaked in her wings.
" at first, i had thought it strange ... " lunafreya starts in earnest, words calm and elegant against the muted rancor of the bar around them. she's dressed in a dark cloak, one that swallows her from the top, but below, out peek two feet, fitted in an expensive pair of heels, both daintily tangled in the barstool. though her cowl is up, loose platinum hairs bracket a sapphire gaze that begins at his hands, and ends at his face.
at this late hour, several patrons seemed complacent in their drunkeness, or already on their way out. in her mind, it was the perfect time to talk up a stranger. even if she had a pretty good idea of his identity, as well as general demeanor. the fulgurian ... she could sense him beneath the skin even at this distance. she's sat adjacent to him, the rim of her wine glass joining with her lips in a patient sip, before returning to his attentions. " but upon further inspection ... i'd like to think you suit your ' eikon ' quite well. " / @telamn
there's gore up to her elbows ㅤ and her skintight leather clothes feel less like a glove than the hot slick heat of late afternoon. ㅤ it could be a synonym for love, to benedikta, ㅤ the act of violence; ㅤ bliss built inside the crypt of her own gratuitous death. ㅤ in the deranged portrait of her side-profile,ㅤ does cid see a beast or a woman? ㅤ see the claws or her russet hands? ㅤ for him it must be both, presence a rag to wipe away the stain, ㅤ carefully pulled through the webbing of her unclenching fingers.
he's still a hero and she's still decidedly not, ㅤ deciding between the underbelly of a wounded animal and the decapitated head of a snake. there's venom. ㅤ there's her bite, healing over cid's jugular. ㅤ and ── there's the bodies on the ground in the mud in a wet morning somewhere around eastpool. ㅤ they were in the way: ㅤ it wraps up neatly for benedikta like that, kicking a body that comes underfoot,ㅤ faceless and decidedly ordinary. ㅤ but, ㅤ but,ㅤ but, ㅤ but it is never as uncomplicated for cid, her decorated general, stench of salt-sea,ㅤ ㅤ her hero of misfits.
benedikta scoffs at him. ㅤ or maybe it's an aborted attempt at a laugh, for how absurd his attempt is: ㅤ him taking on the burden, as he takes on all burdens, as though she doesn't see the plaster of his forearm,ㅤ the pressure offering him a permanent hunch. ㅤㅤㅤ ‘‘ i'm sure you can, ’’ ㅤshe mocks, ㅤ ㅤ ‘‘ but i can handle it better. ’’ ㅤ
hopping over a body,ㅤ or two,ㅤ benedikta presses her chest to his, hands spreading wine-red handprints against the fabric of his shirt. looking up at him, she says,ㅤ ‘‘ stay out of the mud, cidolfus. ㅤ i'll be your hired villain. ’’
THE MOMENT YOUR'S TO SEIZE : 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐎, appearing just at the perfect time ━━━━ bright light flashes, as she brings forth the final blow! golden details upon her 𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 reflect the light, is it your own, azem?
❝ i apologize if i stole your thunder, @telamn. ❞ WARRIOR OF LIGHT not above tipping her tongue into humor. ... head turns to face him, ❝ but standing at the sidelines isn't my thing. ❞ 𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓, 𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐋 ━━━━ they refuse to ignore those in need. hints of concern visible upon her features. ❝ are you unharmed? ❞ question birthed by his coughs.
𝙲𝙸𝙳 𝙾𝙿𝙴𝙽𝚂 𝚄𝙿 𝙾𝙽𝙴 𝙾𝙵 𝙷𝙸𝚂 𝙰𝚁𝙼𝚂. he's got that simper on his face, the one where he's uncontrollably pleased with himself. it widens and widens, uncontained, and is unbearably content not having to do so. it's the uncountable time wherein benedikta flounders at expressing any affection and cid waits with an infuriating adoration in the slate of his eyes, as though he has waited years and could wait more. though in this case, he's probably being annoying on purpose.
"your bed is too small," benedikta complains. it's another overly-tread argument. she hates having no space. he won't get a bigger one because 'he shouldn't be treated any different than anyone else'. right. because everyone else treats him completely ordinary. at least he had the decency to add a second pillow.
scowl creasing on her face, she waves him back. "scoot further."
cid laughs. "there's only the wall behind me benna."
"and a wall in front of me," she mutters.
"what?" he definitely heard her. he's achy and grey-haired but damnably not deaf.
before she decides ripping his throat out with her talons would be a better alternative, she moves forward to fold her body in front of him atop the bed, arms crossed, knees curled up into her stomach. the only space is nearly off the edge, so she lays on her side, stiff. unyielding.
"benna?" his voice is behind her, along with his heat. the humor has seeped out, misplaced by what almost sounds like fear. she can't tell, not without his face, tells hidden in the quirk of his brows, the strained pull of his lips. he sounds unsure, and it makes her nervous. they know not how to grapple with their malleable and shifting relationship, the lines benedikta had once drawn all dusted away.
she wants him to touch her. she also thinks if he placed a hand anywhere near her, she'd bite it.
in waloed, her bed could've been twice, maybe three times the size of this one. no matter how many times she found him lounging in her room, his legs stretched and his body wrinkling her sheets, her smell was still all over it: mandarins, bergamot, sandalwood, and ... beneath, a sweet pungent zing; the fresh aroma of ozone. through her perfume, they faintly smelt of each other, each a storm in their own right.
the width of that bed was their clung-to distance; a safety-measure. out of the corner of her eye, she'd brazenly stare at him, and sometimes, but not often enough, he'd look back at her and the tips of his lips would curl, the hardness of his face softened by her company. she did not know what loving was, then.
she hardly knows it now. shifting on her shoulder as she unwraps her arms, she impatiently fumbles about, looking for his hand behind her. she thinks she hears him snort, but a tentative brush of his fingers meets the tips of hers, and she is quick to pull his whole arm around her, paired over her ribs. with permission, cid attempts to intertwine their hands, their fingers slotting awkwardly as benedikta struggles with the exchange. it becomes half-formed, her fingers curling into his palm, and he huffs with laughter into the back of her head, his breath tickling her hair.
"shut up," she says, having enough awareness to be just a smidge embarrassed.
"need more practice?" all former trepidation has faded in cid's tone, which has become honey-sweet.
oh, it's become a competition now. benedikta's jaw locks. "i'll be an expert in no time."
"i'm sure you will," he agrees, maneuvering so that their hands untangle and refit as they should, finger beside finger, palm to palm. benedikta deflates. it doesn't have to be all bad: he's within her grasp, not a cloud she's been chasing. inside her, the storm rages, seeking to reconcile that which longs for him and that which resents him. "get some rest," he requests with some force behind it, nose to her nape.
benedikta squeezes her eyes shut. it hurts. she thinks she'll be hearing his breathing weigh down with the lull of sleep long before she feels its own pull, but cid uses his leverage to pull her closer, back to chest, and he is all-encompassing. deep and pungent, smoke lingering, and then -- the ozone.
she's fast asleep before she can put a word to the feeling wet inside her lungs.
"get off me." benedikta is pouting. truly and completely pouting. she's a handful of years through her thirties and her mouth is twisted, her tone grumbling, her body taut with a reluctance mostly feigned but too prideful to loosen. she's acting like a child ━ but anyone with the audacity to point that out would probably lose a limb, or, now that cid is a constant nagging presence, a paragon of good or some-such, they'd at least lose their hearing to her screeching.
speaking of cid, who is a bastard with no self-preservation and has a penchant for pissing her off, he's snickering into her hair, his nose tickling the crest of her ear. he's a whole added weight around the structure of her ribs, his rough fingers friction across her shoulder blades. she tries to push him off but his arms are unyielding; she's sure with a bit of effort she could dig at his aches and pains, force him to let go ━ but there is only one way she would touch the cracking parts of him, and it isn't with malice. not anymore.
"you're being ridiculous." benedikta sighs. she pats him on the back half-heartedly, awkward to his displays of affection. "stop hugging me," she asks again, though there is less spirit behind it. her body sinks into him one limb at a time, sagging, a heavy contradiction to her dishonest mouth.
"no," cid rumbles, kissing her brow, and they're so close she can feel the vibration of his tenor, pressed up against her skin. it'd be easier on her if he were a lecherous man ━ and he was, until he wasn't, holding onto her tight like a lifeboat stranded in the ocean, sentimental touches without a hint of heat.
it is devastating to be treated gentle. he must've known this, or he would've let her go. he is on every occasion insightful, even though benedikta has shards of her she is still putting back together, and broken glass hurts. he's ever-present and warm and any observer could easily surmise he was pushing his clinginess onto her, lips swollen from kissing, hands holding fast to the divots of her bones or even her very soul.
cid is packaged with straight-forwardness as much as she is packaged with contradiction. despite the way her angled face is marred with a scowl and her body is pulling uselessly away from him, she doesn't want him to stop.
he knows. benedikta would argue he knows too much, smug with it, but if she could be allowed something near domestic, near idyllic, without breaking, then she'd tolerate his teasing enough not to kill him. enough to last until her skin became marble-white and chilled and heavy and she couldn't feel his warmth anymore.
"you're insufferable," she accuses him.
"i know," cid says, flashing her a smile. "but you like it, don't you?"
