That is by far the most upsetting idea. He really is going to live forever. She really is going to leave him stranded in this world. And him, the fool, has chosen her over protecting himself from that loss. She pauses, and drops the scissors on the bed so she can wrap her arms around his shoulders.
For a moment it feels as though she means to guard him from the world— or the world from them, locking this point in time in place, untouched. Anchoring it soundly so that it might never truly be lost.
Would that it could be so.
“Because he is gone. And I cannot press on only as his memory.”
To remember him in perpetuity, this Noah will do. But if he is to live again, he'll not make himself a monument to his brother's loss.
Oh. "Oh, love." She settles her head next to his, nuzzling in close for a kiss to his cheek. "Identical twins, aye?"
It's the only thing that makes sense. She wonders if she'd be faithful enough to wear Bede's face, if things were different. Then again, she has no idea what Bede looks like, if he looks like anything at all.
Gabranth would hesitate to call them identical, but that relates more to the commonalities between them that he does not wish to see. For better or worse, favor or fallibility, they’ve been mirror to one another since birth, even in separation. And beneath the weight of that thought, his exhale is tired, heavy-handed when he stretches a palm back to sink against the high slope of her spine.
In the past, he would have pulled from such devoted attention without question. Now, he finds calm within it. Easement.
“Indeed.”
His head tips back against her shoulder, the closest he could ever come to relaxing.
She kisses his cheek, and reigns herself in from trying anything further. Intimacy can exist when both parties are clothed; this isn't some issue she has to push past. She just prefers different unions.
"Do my best not to make a fool of you," she says, picking up the scissors, and cutting off a long section for herself. It's set aside on the night table, to be bound into a keepsake for later.
He knows the difference between cutting and keeping. Her traditions, the way it holds unique meaning, much like the locket ever slung around his neck, hidden well beneath the high rise of his armor.
When she returns from setting those strands aside, his face turns to meet her own. Lips to hers in the quiet dark, low and patient in the way of all things wholly devoted.
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"Why're you cutting it now, love?"
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Would that it could be so.
“Because he is gone. And I cannot press on only as his memory.”
To remember him in perpetuity, this Noah will do. But if he is to live again, he'll not make himself a monument to his brother's loss.
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It's the only thing that makes sense. She wonders if she'd be faithful enough to wear Bede's face, if things were different. Then again, she has no idea what Bede looks like, if he looks like anything at all.
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In the past, he would have pulled from such devoted attention without question. Now, he finds calm within it. Easement.
“Indeed.”
His head tips back against her shoulder, the closest he could ever come to relaxing.
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"Do my best not to make a fool of you," she says, picking up the scissors, and cutting off a long section for herself. It's set aside on the night table, to be bound into a keepsake for later.
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When she returns from setting those strands aside, his face turns to meet her own. Lips to hers in the quiet dark, low and patient in the way of all things wholly devoted.
“I am a fool already.”
For her, and her alone.