Stavanger Bay Wilted

Reverie was quiet on the journey home; she displayed none of her discomfort, but all the while fever burned within her. In a futile attempt to salvage something from @Lestan's journey, she'd taken along some of the berries. She wasn't sure why.
She stayed close to her husband, always touching him, but she couldn't look at him. Not until they crossed the border and suddenly she felt herself crumbling, and she stopped, and reached now to stop him too and pull him to her — Lestan, Tears in her eyes, in the sound of her voice. I - I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm just - scared, and I missed you, and - Her breath shuddered and the words caught in her throat. She wanted him to hold her, but she was desperately afraid that he would not. The remembered coldness of his voice —
You don't need me to live,
but she did, she did, and now Reverie crumbled under the knowledge that Lestan would never love her in the way she loved him, in the way that burned so hotly it made all the brightness of all the stars fade to nothing. If he did, then he would have understood. He would never have threatened her so.

lestan said nothing in return.
he was not angry, nor enraged, nor frustrated; he was only exhausted, a cracked amphora of oil which had spilled its contents long ago. the swimming to and fro had sundered him; the hot sun had beat down upon him, and that final scene with everett and reverie had been the last.
they were home now, and he pulled away to sit in coolness, in stillness. he expected that the saltshore pair had blossom in their care, and so he did not seek his daughter yet.
"the witch said if we did not rear them, you would die." his face contorted. "and she gave me nothing at all that said you would live either way." he spread his paws. "if this is magick of some kind, i do not know it, reverie."
the scarring of his hurt and her denial had not yet grasped him; lestan was then able to regard her with clear, cool eyes.

She shook her head, hardly hearing him; she only saw his coolness, his detachment, and she began to spiral into panic. Lestan, Reverie was crying, but that was nothing new. Lestan, I - I can't think about this right now. I - I hurt you, and - She could scarcely think. She couldn't breathe at all. It was over now and it was her fault, her fault — I'm sorry. I'm afraid I've ruined everything. I - I meant to find you, to be there with you - Lestan -
Just - tell me you still want me, even a little bit. Please.

a muscle jumped in his jaw; he was hurt, and it plainly showed. but more than that lestan was not sure he believed reverie any more about her sense of mortality, not when she could so coldly threaten him that she would take her own life.
"i love you, reverie." he knew the absence of anything else would hurt her, tear her as it had done him; such a selfish act, and in his tiredness, his displacement, lestan felt for now no remorse. he could not leave, he could hardly stay, either way ended with her death, and frustration was beating upon the gate of his heart. 
she had refused healing help until it was too late, lestan believed; he remembered the whisper of haunting prognosis in her words as he held her and he cried, but the moment she had seen those wretched little children, spawn of the very witch sapping her life, she had been willing to surrender everything for them.
perhaps he should have let her.

It was what he did not say that was truly meant for her ears, and she felt this — but the simple statement was cutting in its own way too, a reminder of the hurt she'd inflicted on him. I know, She breathed, eyes stinging with still-falling tears. And I love you, and I - I'm sorry. I'll - make it up to you.
I'll be stronger. I'll - see any healer we can find, Reverie swallowed hard. I know that doesn't help now - Oh, she was crumbling; I'm sorry I said that you don't love me. I'll - never say anything like that again. Never. And a bolt of bitterness lanced through her at that, because hadn't Lestan said things, too? Things he could not take back. Things that would hang between them forever. She hadn't insisted on torturing him this way. She hadn't turned away from him.
But maybe this was what she deserved.

"you need to think about it, because it's what you said," lestan said quietly, glancing at her. reverie's pain hurt him, and for that reason he wanted to embrace her, speak no more of this.
but this theme of their strain was constant. if he was not with her all of the time, he dreaded finding her bled to death, and now, and now!
"what if something had happened to me, out there? are you saying you would —"
his jaw tensed but it did not hold off the tears welling in his eyes. "i don't want to be the reason you live or die, rev." it was too much, too great a struggle, too delicate a weight. "we have a child. you need to l-live for her. for blossom. not me."

Rejection in his words; that was all she heard, all she felt, and it was as if the breath had been stolen from her lungs. For Blossom. Not me. Was that truly what he wanted?
And there was a part of her that wanted to snap at him, to ask how he could even think of telling her how she should love her own daughter, the girl she had suffered so much to bring into existence and keep by her side. Lestan was the light in her life but Blossom was a piece of her, a little bit of her soul broken free to wander the world itself. Of course she loved her. But Reverie was realizing that — maybe she did want to be taken care of, and maybe she didn't want to be a mother. But maybe that meant she wasn't quite worthy of getting what she wanted.
She only nodded, but her look was far-away now, and would remain so. We should go to her, Reverie mumbled, and didn't wait for him to respond before she set off. I don't want to be the reason you live or die. It was just as well, then, that he had abandoned all thought of following the witch's plan. Reverie had thought on what he'd said about — choosing a god, finding light — and realized now that the truth would horrify him.
The truth: that she could hold nothing above him, nothing, and for this Reverie would pay with her life. He was the only god she knew now —
And in absence of his favor, she could only rot.

lestan would not have been able to understand. but he did comprehend that reverie's swift capitulation meant she did not agree, only no longer wished to argue. he saw her go off into that mind of hers, and he was on his feet.
"you don't agree?" lestan asked, following though his legs felt heavy, jellied. "what if i needed to go away?" he continued doggedly. "o-or what if something really did happen to me, rev? i n-need to know," and now he ran in front of her, cut off her path, tried to find her eyes with his. "i need to know y-you would be all right, without me. that you w-wouldn't h-hurt —" but he could not finish the sentence.

Reverie took a deep breath, moved by his emotion but rapidly detaching. Not me, he'd said, not me. When... you were gone, when I was at Swiftcurrent Creek, Her voice was steadier, but her breath still came uneven and too quick. When I - when I tried to - in the cave, it wasn't really about her. It was about - making it stop. The pain of losing you. But then - then she was born, Blossom was, and when I met her - I knew I couldn't try that again.
So I didn't. I went back to Swiftcurrent Creek. And I wasn't happy, but I stayed. For her, She was still crying, but less now. Not me, he'd bid her, and she felt the words sinking into the core of her. I - I said it because I wasn't thinking, I was afraid of going back to that dark place. Without you. But I've always chosen Blossom when it matters - and I always will. Lestan didn't seem to understand that — but Reverie was too hurt already to feel this sting at all.

there was something broken here that lestan did not understand. something he was not certain he would. he listened, though the idea of reverie ending her own life over him nauseated the man with fear.
in the end, they had both chosen blossom, hadn't they? the hurt gilding his eyes had lessened, replaced with a wan sense of guilted confusion.
then why would reverie ever say that? to contemplate losing her in death delivered a blow almost harsh enough to press all air from his lungs;
"i believe you," not because lestan was sure he did, but because he wanted so very much for this to be their truth.
very gingerly now the mayfair reached out to reverie, afraid she would reject him and yet understanding why she might choose this.
for the first time, he felt that he'd broken their rough edges into pieces of glass that no longer fit, and he was desperate to smooth them.

Reverie did not reject him, but neither did she press into his arms the way she often did. It wasn't coldness that kept her still but a slow wilting, something in her shriveling and numbing until she hardly felt his touch. She looked at him for a moment, and started to speak — but found that she couldn't, that she was shattering, that she could not stop and would not stop until it had all turned to fine gilded dust.
How could she do anything else when her husband had finally seen plainly the truth of her love for him, and rejected it so fully, so desperately? And maybe — maybe she was wrong to love him the way she did, to pin all of her hopes and all of her fears on him — but Reverie knew no other way to love, and it seemed very much to her as if Lestan must have known, in some way, even before this. Why else would he threaten her with his absence, if not for the knowledge that in this way he could control her? Even now he glossed over it, as if he had never truly intended to leave her, as if he had known all along that this would break her. It had suited him well enough until it had been turned on him. And now —
Not him, he insisted, and so it would not be him, not anymore. Her final act of passion for him would be a shattering, the last shattering, and even this Reverie did for love of her husband. It would have been easy, she thought, to hold on; to grasp at him with burning hands, always burning, until there was nothing left of him but a flash of light and drifting smoke. But she knew that wasn't what he wanted, not anymore. So she would let him go.
Now Reverie truly detached herself from the present. A familiar haze started to come over her, the grief of loss gently pulling and beckoning her to safety. I'd like to see my daughter now, She whispered as she slowly faded, eyes desolate and clouding as she looked at Lestan. Then she pulled away from him, to go to Blossom. For Blossom. Not me. So be it.
She did not speak again for the rest of the night.