Qeya River do i wanna know?

it undoes him.

not wife. not mother. not sun eater’s woman. but the title that was hers before anything else. the one that had belonged to her alone. the one he had followed, had believed in, had loved.

she still held him, even now. even when she was not his to hold.

his throat tightens. his breath comes slow, controlled, as if the careful pacing of it might keep the rest of him from unraveling. her forehead finds his again. the barest touch. like a memory, fleeting and distant.

his chest rises, falls.

<3<3