Ravensblood Forest serenity

<3

he knew. of course he knew. heda could hide nothing from bartholomew, and now even wanting that felt foreign. 
and so the gilt of her eyes slid to the sungold of his. "i saw you and — kacia. for a little while, in the flowers." her voice was not accusatory, but it could not keep from being wounded. "uhum, that's all. i —"
thought you would choose me.
" — don't even know why i..."
heda's voice trailed off, and when it returned she swallowed hard. "maybe we should pray. or i should."

her words became a million daggers upon each tender spot in his heart — or perhaps it was the voice with which she spoke with.

as if she had suddenly sunk teeth into him. taken down by his trusted advisor in the way he would have least expected. how could he ever think of himself like that?

how did she think of him?

a million more questions were created in place of answers.

heda, he had not come here for this. he had not expected to bleed like the trees around them. did she bleed too? what a silly question. i — he ached in pointed ways. fresh wounds.

confessions have always come before prayer.

and although he spoke as a priest now, his voice quaked with the confused trembling of a man who had shut off so much of himself for so long. horribly blindsided. wondering if he had missed something somewhere.

ooofff <3

his voice was even and gentle. heda felt tears pressing behind her eyes and in her throat. it was all so shameful, wasn't it?
her chin trembled. she was so embarrassed to be here. and yet she was desperate to be here, to speak the things unsaid, for bartholomew alone was so trusted. 
his voice said he did not understand.
"well," she began, and her voice felt garbled. "i have — i have been trying to figure out how i love you since then." as a teacher. as a friend. as a priest. all of those ways.
"i guess — ah, when i saw you w-with her, i —" she shut her eyes tightly and inhaled a shaky breath, "you know, maybe i didn't realize i wanted that too. with — you."
she pawed savagely at the ground, the scent of the red sap all around them now. "s-so, now i just have to figure it out, you know. i — bartholomew, i don't want things to be weird between us," heda said, haunted, her eyes searching his. "now i've made it — weird. and all because i don't — know how to feel." the words rolled. she finally cut them off and breathed again and paced a step away, unburdened and yet riddled with guilt to know he held the weight now.

actively tearing up over them :')
and sorry this got so big...

her voice garbled.

his ears underwater.

yet still he somehow heard it all crystal clear. maybe it was the mind of a man to pick apart some pieces more than other. the way she said i love you or the way she spoke his name. had she always said these things? had he committed an unknown sin in some way? but was it a sin if love was built upon faith? his eyes became sea glass. washed with salt and slightly clouded by it.

she didn't know how to feel.

but she had said it. hadn't she? or did he place things where they weren't? maybe she had wished to pray first for guidance, for strength. he had robbed her of that. what else might he rob her of?

there was a tremble of his lips and a fluttering breath that shook his chest.

and you worry of the spring. his voice was small. much too small for the grand, holy man he had become. leader of his flock upon the isle. he wanted to tell her how badly she didn't understand things. he wanted to tell her how complicated things were.

but she had seen him, so free with the sylph he had brought home. oh how easy and carefree that had been, hadn't it?

heda was different. so different. they had met in hellfire and had forged a church from their shared ashes. they had gathered faces for a good cause together, upon the isle. he trusted her so deeply. how many personal things had been spoken between them?

through these two women he thought of dove.

resting in the earth. his first love. a love he had thought would be until his own time had come to spend his days in Heaven. a woman he had already raised two boys with. two boys who likely disagreed with everything he had done in the wake of their mother's death. who likely resented the aloofness that had plagued him after it.

there was the risk of a repetition, with either woman mind you. that he might crumble whole families once more and be no better than the faces who had hurt heda in the past. he knew not of the past of kacia.

he felt sick.

he blamed himself for everything in that moment.

maybe he had never become a better man. maybe he was no better than the man who had slept unwedded in the spring and mingled among those not his kind to forget it all.

you don't know how to feel, but i dare to think you and God know how you do feel. why worry for spring otherwise?

he did not accuse her. he did not press blame back upon her. he had done this to her. to them. he was certain of that much.

ME TOO but never apologize <33 it's all amazing

"because babies are born then," heda said, almost hiccuping over her sob. why did it hurt so much to say? sadly unbeknownst to her, something more was coming for heda, something she neither knew of or sensed even as her heart fell into conflict.
it was all coming apart! she watched in agony as confusion and anguish and something else, things she could not understand, crossed the face that had always been open to her.
heda had ruined it. she with her fancifulness and stupid ignorance, she with no memory of what romance even resembled save for the few times she had seen of the way lane and tuuluuwaq had looked at each other.
hadn't bartholomew looked at kacia the same way? had she been wrong? blood pounded in her ears and sickened her throat. did he think less of her? did he hate her now?
"i'm sorry," heda whispered, knowing that this man would never blame her. but she wanted it, she wanted him to leave some of it for her to bear, if just to prove she was worth more than to be abandoned.
again.
"i don't know how i feel. it's just — confusing, i guess, to suddenly feel — you know." it was wrong and possessive and heda knew it had a hundred roots. "maybe if you get married and have kids then you — won't —" and her eyes welled with tears now, to touch so direct upon the seat of that old pain.

<333

they had shared so much.

yet still he kept clutched close the memories of a life before. of a wife, of a happy home — because using the wake of it and the misery had been easier. it was better to create something new than if he had stayed back there. to clean up after everyone's mourning.

he may have lived in those memories now had she not become a sobbing mess. there was the reflex to scoop her up. to soothe, to pray together, sing hymns until she fell asleep.

was such still his place? or would it fuel something he could not speak upon?

he offered himself as shelter, but this time he did not press forward so freely. she must decide her boundaries now between them. always, always, always he had focused upon her healing. using it to heal himself.

married and kids.

somehow the very thing that had plagued his thoughts, he suddenly wished to send so far away.

i won't what? love you?

he was prepared to lay in the grave they made for each other with their shoveling words.

heda's breath was choked. "yes." and so sordid it was to say aloud and to feel the truth pinning her uncomfortably. for it was all connected: mahler to issorartuyok to bartholomew, father figures that dissipated on the horizon to seek their own way.
"i thought —" and now she impatiently brushed her tears away with crooked fore-ankle " — i thought — it's so stupid, but maybe i thought you for sure wouldn't if we were —"
bartholomew had always held her in these moments. now he lingered close but did not move to take her into his embrace. this made her feel worse, unmoored; heda clambered at once and desperately to rest her forehead against his shoulder, away from his gaze or the sea or the air.
he smelled like all of them, a gentle fragrance that lat the salt and sand and lavender aroma of his fur. her body relaxed little by little.
she wanted to stay here. she wanted to go home. she wanted to rewind to when she hadn't said anything and made things horrible and weird; she could have just loved him silently.
but there were not silences between bartholomew and heda.
"just — tell me you love me and you aren't leaving." her voice was muffled; she meant it in self-deprecation, but the joke fell flat: she was asking, even if she did not want to do so. "and that we can just go on leading sweetharbor together and — that you'll live your life, no matter what."

he held her as he always had, even if his hesitation had been there.

he listened as he had always sworn to do.

but this time it hurt to listen. the pain increased by the second and he wondered if it would ever end. if the marked each other for life. not bonded by holy matrimony but burned together by hellfire. still he remained against her.

we will lead as we have. nobody is leaving. not i and i hope not you. his own humor dampened by the somberness of it all. but he had other things he must tell her. that she had asked to hear and that she had a right to know. and it is true, that i do love you. i care for you greatly, heda, but will you promise to live your life too? no matter what things i say or do? he echoed her words.

they bounced off the walls of his heart.

heda shook her head. "not me."
she listened to the rest with relief and acceptance, and jubilation blooming somewhere inside of her. "i will." and she knew — she knew that it could not be as she wanted.
else god would have made it so.
i do love you
not in that way but heda knew it to be so true; she felt his adoration and and forever. eventually the girl pulled away and gave him a quick, wan smile. "we should go," voice a whisper, for she felt the pressure of this place and knew they must come back.

fading <3

i agree,

voice soft and the tiredness of heightened emotions settled in.

he missed his lavender fields, the shelter of trees, the view from the greenhills.

tonight he would sleep in solitude, away from all eyes. praying and singing. he did not realize just how badly he yearned for guidance from God in this matter.

even if everything felt settled.