Hushed Willows black in the magic, beauty in the tragic

she opened her mouth to speak, and he knew from the icy way the words left her mouth that his declaration was not welcome. he should have known, all along. i love you, she said. . .but it was a different kind of love, he knew. i choose stockholm. you choose dawn. and there was nothing he could refute there. they each had made their choices; she had, perhaps, made hers long before he'd washed up on shore.

aditya shook his head at her plea, throat so tight he could barely swallow. "no," he managed to squeeze out, his voice hoarse. "don't be sorry, please don't be sorry." anguish crested over him like a wave, and he found it suddenly incredibly hard to breathe, wanting nothing more but to retreat into the shadows, to grieve this small loss.

to assume is one thing; to know is quite another. with the question left unanswered, aditya had carried hope. hope, that perhaps one day, she'd find it in her to love him, above all others. that she could be his, and he could be hers. overriding that, most days, was the assumption that such a scenario would never happen--but there, still, was hope. but with the unspoken question, the declaration of love, and the answer that followed, the sweetness of hope was gone, replaced by bitter finality.

sadness, anger, envy, regret. . .all of it, in a thunderous mix, assailed his senses. his eyes were turbulent as he stared at her, then, after a few beats of silence, he jerked his chin abruptly in the direction of dawnlark plains.

"morningside," aditya said, clipped and succinct. "i will take you there." without another word, he padded away, his belly aching with each and every sobbing breath he stifled. he'd look back once, to make sure she was following, but otherwise wouldn't meet her eyes until they'd reached the plains--and maybe not even then.

the hell of it all was that he still loved her--and didn't know how to stop.