11-19-2022, 11:17 PM
“They must have done something very bad to deserve such a prison,” she murmured. “Else it’s a very cruel punishment, never being free,” Her voice was musing, lulled with the promise of sleep. If Tristan did not deign it right to release them, Thalia didn’t argue with the logic or morality; rather, she trusted his judgement, and considered only that to be forced into the role of a jailor was a heavy burden to bear. Especially a jailor of kin. Her eyelids drooped a little as she watched the flames, thinking of the beating heart he had wrenched from a stone pillar. He spoke so calmly now, but in the drawings his expression had been tormented. In the drawings he had swallowed that heart like it was an inescapable part of him. “Do you believe your blood marks you for the same fate? Is that what troubles you?”
Tristan had answered so far, and each time it felt like brushing silt from the discovery of sunken treasure, but he did not relish the conversation. Huddled so close, Thalia was aware of the tension built in his muscles, even if he had relaxed some in the fire’s warmth, and yet the words spilled free before she considered if they were wise. Her curiosity was as insistent as the kiss of waves upon shore. But it was gentle too, taking away only what was offered. She found his silences as fascinating as the things he chose to share, and in the closeness of the moment, she minded neither response. But she did not want him to move away.
“I ask too many questions,” she admitted, sleepily rubbing the side of her face in an effort to rouse herself. She had been told as much, usually in chagrin, a thousand times over. And even so she wanted to ask what they taunted him with, and why he sounded so resigned to its truth. To ask why he had called her a monster too, back at the cabin. But she quieted herself, for when she looked up, the study’s shifting light made him almost appear like basalt stone himself, motionless as he was – and as unyielding. Her injured hand lifted to rest against his chest, half expecting reality to blur and phase and crack no matter his assurance that all this was real.
But his skin was warm; far warmer than the cool press of her fingers. Deja vu hummed with the touch; she had drawn almost exactly this, and more than once, but a drawing could not convey how solid it felt, or how alive. The rise and fall of his breath was steady. The rhythm of his heart pressed against her palm.
“If it didn’t beat with troll-blood too, you would never have had a reason to come here,” she said after a moment. The revelation captured her in the very same moment she said it aloud for them both to hear. Because no-one else would have come here. Even Patricus only paused long enough to instill his warning, despite the mountains he moved to find her in the first place. “We never would have met. Not in this world, and maybe not even in the dreaming one. I would still be bleeding out on those rocks. Or tumbling lost through the maze of this place alone. Nothing of this moment would exist.” Thalia was soft and earnest in her evaluation. Her knees pulled up close as a shiver travelled through her, not cold or fear, but the enormity of the world around them distilled down to this one place and time. She wanted him to know that it meant something to her.
A symphony of feeling filled her up and overflowed in the openness of her expression, and she was content in the wonder and fear of it. When Tristan’s gaze scoured the room, Thalia’s attention obediently followed, washed afresh in the surreality of it all. She understood the question to mean her halfhearted flutter through the contents of the table, but his phrasing pulled at something else entirely. She felt it flush through her, and she didn’t fight it. If need pulled her onwards, beholden to mysteries she could not hope to understand but could neither ignore, she had never paused to consider what it was she actually wanted.
“I don’t know. I could ask you the same thing,” she answered, faint amusement twinkling for how she suspected he knew just as little about his own motivations and desires as she did hers. As she spoke she leaned closer, artist’s fingers tracing marks on his face that did not exist outside of her drawings and a life she didn’t remember. The glitter of amusement warmed to something else. From the cliff of his cheekbone, her thumb skirted the swell of his lip, and then she kissed him.
Tristan had answered so far, and each time it felt like brushing silt from the discovery of sunken treasure, but he did not relish the conversation. Huddled so close, Thalia was aware of the tension built in his muscles, even if he had relaxed some in the fire’s warmth, and yet the words spilled free before she considered if they were wise. Her curiosity was as insistent as the kiss of waves upon shore. But it was gentle too, taking away only what was offered. She found his silences as fascinating as the things he chose to share, and in the closeness of the moment, she minded neither response. But she did not want him to move away.
“I ask too many questions,” she admitted, sleepily rubbing the side of her face in an effort to rouse herself. She had been told as much, usually in chagrin, a thousand times over. And even so she wanted to ask what they taunted him with, and why he sounded so resigned to its truth. To ask why he had called her a monster too, back at the cabin. But she quieted herself, for when she looked up, the study’s shifting light made him almost appear like basalt stone himself, motionless as he was – and as unyielding. Her injured hand lifted to rest against his chest, half expecting reality to blur and phase and crack no matter his assurance that all this was real.
But his skin was warm; far warmer than the cool press of her fingers. Deja vu hummed with the touch; she had drawn almost exactly this, and more than once, but a drawing could not convey how solid it felt, or how alive. The rise and fall of his breath was steady. The rhythm of his heart pressed against her palm.
“If it didn’t beat with troll-blood too, you would never have had a reason to come here,” she said after a moment. The revelation captured her in the very same moment she said it aloud for them both to hear. Because no-one else would have come here. Even Patricus only paused long enough to instill his warning, despite the mountains he moved to find her in the first place. “We never would have met. Not in this world, and maybe not even in the dreaming one. I would still be bleeding out on those rocks. Or tumbling lost through the maze of this place alone. Nothing of this moment would exist.” Thalia was soft and earnest in her evaluation. Her knees pulled up close as a shiver travelled through her, not cold or fear, but the enormity of the world around them distilled down to this one place and time. She wanted him to know that it meant something to her.
A symphony of feeling filled her up and overflowed in the openness of her expression, and she was content in the wonder and fear of it. When Tristan’s gaze scoured the room, Thalia’s attention obediently followed, washed afresh in the surreality of it all. She understood the question to mean her halfhearted flutter through the contents of the table, but his phrasing pulled at something else entirely. She felt it flush through her, and she didn’t fight it. If need pulled her onwards, beholden to mysteries she could not hope to understand but could neither ignore, she had never paused to consider what it was she actually wanted.
“I don’t know. I could ask you the same thing,” she answered, faint amusement twinkling for how she suspected he knew just as little about his own motivations and desires as she did hers. As she spoke she leaned closer, artist’s fingers tracing marks on his face that did not exist outside of her drawings and a life she didn’t remember. The glitter of amusement warmed to something else. From the cliff of his cheekbone, her thumb skirted the swell of his lip, and then she kissed him.
![[Image: thal-banner-scaled.jpg]](http://thefirstage.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/thal-banner-scaled.jpg)