Stone Circle To you I’m probably a light sadness

Words fell on deaf ears, eyes trained on the one that would not approach. He stared past everyone else, unwilling to spare them even a glance now—now that he could see her, he didn’t want to look away. It’d been so long now since they’d last spoken, since his search to find them had begun. He didn’t want to look away, visibly worried that doing so would only result in losing her again. If he looked away now, she’d disappear and he’d be lost, aimless, defeated—

Fuck off, Xan!

What was once an expression of hope quickly soured, ripened fruit rotting and withering away. His entire posture fell, stricken down by just a few words and a harsh reality check: she didn’t want to see him. Alexander stood there as stiff as a corpse, staring off after her, trembling with the sheer overload of emotions that he was made to experience. The approach of the other male went unnoticed and all sounds unheard, unable to pull himself out of the state he’d slipped and fallen into.

She didn’t want to see him.

She didn’t want to speak to him.

Why was he still there?

“I can’t leave again…” he whispered, answering himself. He couldn’t get his body to listen to him, couldn’t move an inch. Everything suddenly felt heavy, like lead, threatening to drag him down and crush him entirely. His mouth opened and then closed, struggling to form anything coherent enough to actually leave his lips. Did Indra feel the same way? Did she want him gone? He stole a fleeting glance in her direction, searching for anything that might tell him otherwise, but it wasn’t long before his head whipped back to the opposite side, eyeing his sister. And what did she think? Now also demanding that he leave—what had he done?

“Desna, please,” he begged, nearly choking on his own words. “Please let me stay. Let me—let me fix this. I want to be better. Please.” The trembling did not cease, further encouraged by the fear and rejection he felt; the fear that he would always be stuck reliving his mistakes, never to find peace. He didn’t want that, he couldn’t live like that. He’d spent so long being angry, so long feeling rejected, unwanted, dirty—he couldn’t do it anymore.