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Jul. 1st, 2021 05:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iniquiticity39 an actual open honest conversation
(this is from the non-sexual intimacy prompts from [burst of static] days ago)
after a few weeks of watching astrid decided that she probably didn't need to slaughter essek. she knew he was safe because it made her angry, the easy way he touched bren (caleb, she reminded herself), and the easy way caleb touched him. nothing like the way caleb looked at her, watched her. nothing like the deep and known abyss she felt between them.
better to keep theylss under her eye, then and now. she had been systematically changing every room in the tower. he would have lo loathed it, that essek had a place to say here. a place to work. a place to store his things. a place to hide. essek hadn't said, but she wasn't stupid - he didn't have any other homes. she watched him in every room of the tower that had eyes, which was all of them.
"dinner?" she asked, one day, catching in hallway. he had been gone for about ten days and returned yesterday.
he was surprised. "sure," he said. there was a small dining room, where she typically took meals with eadwulf. she had sent wulf on a little mission to port damali. that was the worst part, surprisingly worse than ludinus - that she needed eadwulf to go places without her now.
they ate for a while. then essek went: "you gave me these things. why? to watch me?"
she did, for a while, consider ignoring him, or lying. she said, "yes," and that could have been enough, but then she said, "you make him... happy." and that could have been enough. a hole in her chest felt black and deep and endless. "not... in a way I can. anymore." her skin itched. how he had danced with her, in the dance hall, before trent had been cast into the hole which he presently rotted. his plead stuck in her mind. i'm begging, astrid. the love we once shared.
once. shared. in his classes, which she had watched, he was professor widogast. the name rolled over her chest like a spiked ball.
she saw essek consider politeness. in his face for a moment he was demure, humble. he looked at her and cast the veneer aside. "i'm sorry," he said. theylss knew about regret, and about the person you were once, and the person you were now. maybe he even had someone like caleb was to him, how maybe he reached over that great void and his arms were not long enough and never could be. maybe they had been sawed off at the elbow.
"don't be," she said, and the teeth in her core gnashed. she stared at him. he didn't look away. "love him."
"thank you," he said, wholly genuinely.
(this is from the non-sexual intimacy prompts from [burst of static] days ago)
after a few weeks of watching astrid decided that she probably didn't need to slaughter essek. she knew he was safe because it made her angry, the easy way he touched bren (caleb, she reminded herself), and the easy way caleb touched him. nothing like the way caleb looked at her, watched her. nothing like the deep and known abyss she felt between them.
better to keep theylss under her eye, then and now. she had been systematically changing every room in the tower. he would have lo loathed it, that essek had a place to say here. a place to work. a place to store his things. a place to hide. essek hadn't said, but she wasn't stupid - he didn't have any other homes. she watched him in every room of the tower that had eyes, which was all of them.
"dinner?" she asked, one day, catching in hallway. he had been gone for about ten days and returned yesterday.
he was surprised. "sure," he said. there was a small dining room, where she typically took meals with eadwulf. she had sent wulf on a little mission to port damali. that was the worst part, surprisingly worse than ludinus - that she needed eadwulf to go places without her now.
they ate for a while. then essek went: "you gave me these things. why? to watch me?"
she did, for a while, consider ignoring him, or lying. she said, "yes," and that could have been enough, but then she said, "you make him... happy." and that could have been enough. a hole in her chest felt black and deep and endless. "not... in a way I can. anymore." her skin itched. how he had danced with her, in the dance hall, before trent had been cast into the hole which he presently rotted. his plead stuck in her mind. i'm begging, astrid. the love we once shared.
once. shared. in his classes, which she had watched, he was professor widogast. the name rolled over her chest like a spiked ball.
she saw essek consider politeness. in his face for a moment he was demure, humble. he looked at her and cast the veneer aside. "i'm sorry," he said. theylss knew about regret, and about the person you were once, and the person you were now. maybe he even had someone like caleb was to him, how maybe he reached over that great void and his arms were not long enough and never could be. maybe they had been sawed off at the elbow.
"don't be," she said, and the teeth in her core gnashed. she stared at him. he didn't look away. "love him."
"thank you," he said, wholly genuinely.