@unweapon asked: "Love feels so distant now, i-it doesn't seem possible." Cursed! A cursed boy! Curse after curse nothing seems to work out! Emil gripped his tattered clothes with long skeletal fingers. There were sounds of crying but no tears. "Nobody could love someone like me, how I look, how I am. But! I still want to protect them, the people I love. That can't be wrong can it?"
𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡’𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐦 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐡𝐲𝐦𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐬. 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬, 𝐨𝐡 𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚 𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐥’𝐬 𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐬. the skeletal-magicked boy is not unlike the terrified hollow-eyed burnish children back at the bunker camp: their laughter is secreted away within their shivering bodies, their innocence forcibly peeled from their soft flesh, their hearts’ stripped of sunlit joy and starved out of hope. forlorn and haunted and forgotten. ripped out of their homes and hunted down for manifesting mutative powers that are much their birthright as the breath filling up their lungs and the blood flowing through their arteries. to anyone else, to the people in power, to the authorities who wield their polluted intentions as though they are waving around holy swords, the burnish children are necessary casualties, sheep to the slaughter, sacrificial and entirely dispensable. tempered fury simmers, settles, but it is crackling beneath the surface like logs in the hearth. but——this child, though achingly similar, stands apart.
lio smoothly crouches down to eye-level, dry lips parting open around a response. and then, an impulse possesses him, slithers inside of him like shimmering smoke: he peels his gloves off each finger, slowly, carefully, so as not to startle or frighten. the cool air feels strange on his bare hand, so long confined within the snug embrace of the gleaming leather. he does not dwell too long on it; rather, lio presents his hand, palm up, fingers curled inward. the familiar song of heat engulfs him and it is like a homecoming, like a revelation, like delirium. a single flame flickers to life, its root the center of his ivory-pale palm. lio’s ethereal bejeweled eyes peer at the machine who is a boy who is the fullness of a ripe moon. with his other gloved hand, lio reaches out tentatively and gently beckons the bony fingers to uncurl so that he could hold them within his grasp, soft as gossamer. he dare not offer vulnerability and sanctuary to anyone else, the longing to be known and loved be damned. but, here, it is a rhapsodic unmasking. a kind of sharing, the glabrous universe unraveling for them.
❛❛ don’t cry, little one. ❜❜ his voice is coaxing, a low deep lull. ❛❛ your selfless kindness is as true as starlight and you aren’t lesser or any less deserving of love because of the way that you might be perceived by others. ❜❜ love unfetters as much as it binds. is is both treasonous and faithful. lio exhales and the bright benign fire dances, sways to the sound of a tuneless enchantment. ❛❛ the people you love are endlessly lucky to have your devoted protection and allegiance. there is nothing more precious than altruism. but don’t tear yourself apart in the process. you’re not cannon fodder. you’re not kindle or the ash. so, what i’m trying to say is: it isn’t wrong but your life isn’t forfeit and you don’t make yourself worthy of love by surrendering it. either way, my assistance is yours should you ever need it. ❜❜
ɪɴʙᴏx ᴄᴀʟʟ / ᴀʟᴡᴀʏs ᴀᴄᴄᴇᴘᴛɪɴɢ
