Meabh (![]() ![]() @ 2017-12-14 09:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, *palace, erevos, merry |
Who: Erevos and Merry
What: A reunion goes terribly wrong
Where: The palace
When: After this
Warnings: The feels.
The voice, hisvoice had moved through her all at once and had made every single molecule inside her tremble and then freeze. For a long time, she stood there, unmoving, unsure, scared, excited...and something else too. Joy was too small a word for what she felt when she realized that Erevos had come to the gala. He was there right now…and she was here.
“Merry?” they asked, even if they were used to her traversing the universe whilst in the middle of a chat.
The wisp floated there and maybe she sighed. She may have opened her mouth to say something to him but through her open mouth came nothing. Teeth snapped and lips shut. Talking to him through a wisp after all these years just wouldn’t do.
“Are you okay Merry?” they asked. After all she had been so convivial just moments ago and now she was somewhere else completely.
Merry didn’t make any excuses to the concerned party when she suddenly departed from the conversation. It was easy to guess what she was up to but she’d never just openly confess her inability to stay away from him. She was drawn and his very presence pulled to her in a way that no other did. If she didn’t go to him she would think about it and obsess about it and it would eat at her and claw at her until she was only ragged ribbons of raw emotion...and regrets.
At the very least she had to see him. They say some people lose sight of someone after a long time but not Merry. When she closed her eyes she could see his face, she could hear his voice, smell that midnight calm on him, taste his tongue. Every memory was beloved and sharp and it cut each time she thought about their last time, the promises that had lingered there on her tongue, the intentions she had meant but couldn’t follow through on.
She drifted through the feast, her toes just barely dragging on the ground as she searched for him. She pressed through repartee, nudged through bodies connected, overturned bowls of crimson fruits and spilled glasses of hopes and dreams on her way to get to him.
When she finally did come upon him she froze there, staring across the space between them. It was too far and not far enough. The stars punctuated her feelings, their twinkling matching the funeral drum of her terrified heart beat. He was speaking to someone and didn’t see her and when she thought he might turn she dispelled into cosmic dust and floated on the breeze just a little closer, to have a better look.
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He knew his voice would reach her. Just as he knew, the moment he stepped back into this realm; that she was within it. He could feel her very essence - heady, sweet, achingly beautiful and unnervingly familiar. He felt his chest tighten with a myriad of emotions. Rage, hurt, resentment, desire, joy. Layered within that was also a longing so powerful and all consuming, that it rippled out from within him, fracturing the shadows surrounding him. For a moment they became jagged shards, rather than smooth, curling swells. She was somewhere near, cloaked behind bodies and decorations and tedious conversations. She was close by, and she was watching him. Closer and closer he felt her advance.
Then, for the briefest of moments, he caught a thread of her scent and it nearly brought him to his knees.
Oh, Merry.
It had been so long. Too long. He remembered every second, every minuscule detail of her. The way her hair felt between his fingertips, the shape of her eyes and the light within them, the way she sighed.
But it was useless wasn't it... Why should he care? Why should it matter? She had left him. The span of four hundred human years had came and went, all without a trace of her. How many nights had he spent, tormented by her sudden absence; wandering endlessly in search of her? Raging, destroying, tearing apart anything foolish enough to cross his path. He had allowed his pain and his wrath to wash over entire cities, wiping out everything in its wake. How many nights had he spent crying out only to receive hollow silence in response?
And how many more years would it take for him to forget her, to move on, to change and adapt to an existence without her? Was such a thing even possible? It should have been. Change was his nature, after all. All things ended. So why couldn't he simply end this tie he felt to her? Why couldn't he sever it... Was she fated to forever slip through his grasp? What did Death know of love, after all. Perhaps it was never meant to envelope and consume him the way it did with others. But he wanted... he wanted it to. That was the secret he never spoke of, the truth he kept buried so deep within himself that it nearly festered, a wound untended to.
Only seconds had passed, but it was enough that his eyes had become far off, unfocused. His conversation partner took notice and asked after his well being. "My apologies. I was caught in a memory... that's all." He steeled himself with a breath and turned his focus back to the conversation before him. The granite barrier around his heart rose up once more, a futile attempt to protect him from that which he knew could be his destruction. For no other Fae or human, in all of the endless ages of his existence, had ever made him feel time or pain the way she had.
And even still, he loved her.
He was Death. He was endings, he was beginnings. He was destruction and chaos. And he was fractured. He longed to return to the days when he knew nothing of such human concepts like time, pain, and worst of all - waiting.
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This close, she realized that he knew she was near. But she hid herself in the small spaces of destiny so that she could wonder at him. Erevos was a force and once they were switched on and completely in the others proximity she wouldn’t get this outside view. She liked to watch him, to see him with others, to listen to his conversation, to just wonder at him. To adore him from afar. Or, from as far as she could stand to be away from him.
Her hands wrung together, the pads of her fingers nudging the soft flesh of the other as she longed to touch his face, to feel the bristle of his whiskers against her skin, to allow her finger tips to slide to those softer places she knew about where he icy fingers would startle him until they warmed to the same temperature he was. She wanted to press against him. She wanted to feel his size next to her, impress upon the solidness of him, to marvel at the strength he bore.
Oh! How she had missed him, had ached for him...though he might not believe that to be the truth. She was ephemeral compared to him, a specter of all that he was. He was truth flat out, inside-out and she was a journey. To grab her was as futile as grabbing at mist. Sometimes she was an ethereal force even to herself.
In the corner of his eye, she manifested in her glamoured form. She wore a dress of starlight. Her hair was worn loose, a starless black that fell softly around a face that was wearing a looking of reverence and worry.
Merry needed a little padding between them, in case he didn’t turn to her, in case he chose to torment her by rejecting her approach. Something she couldn’t blame him for doing. Not that the worry seemed to be seething inside of her. Outward she looked as enduring as ever, set in the space she stood in like a star set in a constellation. It was as the place she stood existed only so she could stand there.
“Erevos….” the name became the perfect note as it left her lips. All of the meaning and emotion behind that one name harmonized with the winter that surrounded them, melting ice, burning through the distance, making the heat that she felt for him impossible to ignore.
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He caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye, the glittering gown she wore, the light that always seemed to emanate from her. It pulled at him to turn around, face her, take her in. She was starlight and mist and everything intangible. His eyes were greedy to devour the sight of her, his hands eager to roam the dips and swells of her body; some instinctual force rose to the forefront of his awareness and nearly took control of him once more. But it didn't, and so he did not turn toward her. Not yet. He'd had plenty of time to practice steeling himself against the effect she had on him - four hundred years precisely. He called upon that practice now.
Though he wanted nothing more than to run to her and wrap his arms around her, feel her softness beneath his hands; he remained where he was - still carrying on the conversation with his companion. Even though his focus was threatening to fray with every moment that passed.
Then she spoke his name, and nearly all of his resolve faltered. The sound of it washed over him and sank through his skin; casting a shiver along the length of his spine. He remembered her touch, and wished he hadn't.
Finally, he could bear it no more; he had to look at her, had to see her eyes, to connect with her over this slight physical distance even in the smallest amount. Erevos shifted his head a fraction, just enough for his gaze to meet with hers. A brief instant, but that's all it took. The air crackled with a charge. The corner of his lips twitched as if about to curve into a knowing, warm smile; but faltered in the last second as a wave of anger replaced that sense of yearning, turning it bitter and cold. His eyes slipped shut a moment, then he lowered his gaze and returned it to that of his companion.
No, he would not greet her calmly, pleasantly; as if the last interaction they had hadn't ripped him apart. And no, he would not go to her. His pride and his rage held both impulses in check. For years he had envisioned what a reunion between the two of them might be like, what it would feel like.
He was utterly unprepared.
And, he needed to leave. Now. In a sudden, abrupt decision, Erevos excused himself from the conversation and turned to leave.
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This whole time at the gala she knew of the possibilities, each chance, each path this reunion could take and Merry had always hoped for the best one, that he’d go to her as she’d gone to him. Of course, he might not have come at all, but there he was.
Erevos.
He was going to come to her and press his lips to hers, and it would be the sweetest moment she had known for such a long time.
It didn’t happen.
Then she realized she hadn’t expected him to turn from her and it devastated her. Her hand clutched to where her heart still kicked against her chest. Anticipation was settling into the horror of knowing he might never want to talk to her again, to touch her, to love her, to whisper against her ear and hold her to him for as long as she wanted him to.
There were others there in this moment of their, of course. They weren’t in some desolate setting. He’d been talking to an Unseelie she’d barely spoken to in all of her existence and now they looked to her as he begged his pardon and started to slip away. An eyebrow punched up on the brow of his prior company. He was considering Merry, ripping her to shreds in his petty, assuming, gossip mongering mind. There was complete silence actually, as the group of them scrutinized what was happening. Merry swallowed the lump in her throat but didn’t look away from any of their questioning glances. She straightened up, her chin rose, and she looked at them with a majestic air as she proceeded toward him.
The Fae kind and especially the Unseelie appreciated their petty theories. They’d all heard her say his name. The delivery had been unpracticed. Unexpected. It had been too raw, and she’d thrown that morsel of feeling in the middle of the wolves.
Is that what he wanted?
She would rip herself open and spill all of her contents if he asked.
“Erevos…” she tried again, and went past the onlookers, following after him, knowing that this scene would invite speculation. Right now she didn’t care. Right now there was no one else in the whole of creation.
“I came to the gala hoping that you might too.” she reached out, her fingertips barely brushed the back of his jacket. Even that miniscule touch sent a shockwave of sensation through her. She almost tripped over her feet. Something that never happened. But, her body felt as if it was falling through everything, breaking apart into pieces if he was going to deny her.
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Erevos stilled at that touch, tension building in his shoulders and jaw as he turned to face her. His eyes were sharp as they evaluated her; swept over the features of her face with a cold but measured fury. He was barely able to contain what he felt, and was moments away from yelling outright; without a care for their audience of onlookers.
"Don't." His tone was harsh, gravely, and final. She was so much closer now, the full weight of her beauty and her presence nearly devastated him. Still, she felt just out of his reach. At least, that's what he was used to. So that is what he'd resigned himself to believe. "Don't do that. Do not insult me by pretending you have forgotten what your last words to me were." Each word spoken with a clipped sound. He was all but baring his teeth.
He pressed forward now, into her space; looming, not with the intent to embrace her, but rather to provoke her. To incite some form of a response beyond the one she'd given - she was too calm, too put together, and it infuriated him. As if their separation all these years had meant so little to her, as if it had been nothing but an afterthought. As if he was nothing but an afterthought to her. On some cooler, rational level; he knew that wasn't the case, he could feel and sense the way she was affected by him. But in this moment, his anger blotted out everything else. All that was left was the hurt and betrayal, whispering poisonous things in his ear... You should be able to cast her aside as easily as she did you.
His chest rose and fell with sharp, shallow breaths as the emotions within him churned and tangled. The environment narrowed now to only her face. Erevos was completely oblivious to the steadily growing crowd that was parting around them, giving them space. Onlookers peered openly and muttered quiet comments, sharp judgments, amused gazes.
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She would never be afraid of him. He could snarl and glare, tower over like like he was a stonewall about to come crashing down, and she wouldn't fear him.
Now she was distraught, aching with the realization that this had been the aftermath of what had to happen so long ago. It just hadn't been the moment for them. She'd thought she could tear away from what was, that she could change the way it had to be but when Merry tried, had taken the step off the path, the cosmos had screamed. All those ghostly stars, the ones that had burned out millions of years ago, whose light still rained down on them right now through time and distance cried out in anguish.
They had their stories, their tales written and she couldn't just wipe their legacy's away. This wasn't just small, fickle destiny...Some scratch ticket in an alleyway or a chance encounter. This was Fate and Death, and it was ordained the moment that burst into existence.
"I knew you'd be here." She looked at him, looked at his lips, the way his mouth spit the words at her. He wanted to make her feel small. For the moment, Merry would let him rage on.
"I had to wait until now." She swallowed everything else she wanted to say but didn't look away. Didn't SHRINK.
Of course, she remembered her last words to him, after so many others she supposed the last words would be the only ones that would matter to Erevos. I have to go. We can't do this. Not now.
She reached for his face, fingers trying to ply him back to someplace rational, to convince him to go someplace with her and talk somewhere more private.
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"NO," he roared, jerking a step backward to avoid the touch of her fingers upon his face. Shadows flared out from him violently, pulsing through the space surrounding them; furniture and decor were either blasted back or shattered to rubble in the wake of it.
He couldn't let her do that, couldn't let her touch him. Not now. He would shatter, and all would be witness to it. He was already cracking apart at the seams. He could let others see him destroy, see his wrath and his fury. That was nothing new, nothing they hadn't seen before. But this... this was territory much too private, too raw, too painful.
The world came back to him slowly then, he began to notice the hushed whispers and low hum of voices surrounding them.
With a brittle glare, he surveyed the room, the endless faces invading this very personal moment, using it as fodder for their own entertainment. It was his own fault, but still he was furious. Gradually it dawned on him the suggestion Merry had attempted to prompt, to get him to move away from this space, just for now; to avoid what was already happening. But all he'd known was very real terror at the thought of her touch; because of how much he wanted it, even now; wanted her. How much he knew he would lose himself to her within moments of that skin to skin contact. Even the ghost of her fingertips had left their mark, searing into his skin.
Too much. It was just too much.
His gaze returned to her eyes, staring down at her for a long moment. He shook his head, a tiny movement; as if he couldn't fathom the thousand competing thoughts warring in his mind; not a single one of them coherent enough to translate into speech.
But she was right. They couldn't do this here. He wasn't sure he wanted to speak with her further at all, but at the moment, what was most important was simply getting out of view. Wordlessly, he gestured to one of the halls nearby, for them to relocate.
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She winced at his retreat, at his fury. She wasn't scared but this violent reaction only made her more aware of the pain he was in, and she wanted to soothe him. Erevos seemed utterly unwilling for that to happen.
Even if she tried, she wouldn't be able to conceal the wilting, hurt expression she wore. He was besieged with so many destructive, niggling worms of thought that he looked positively panicked.
She was doing him harm. He was bleeding misery and she couldn't do anything. "Erevos..."She said again, then clasped her hands in front of her, became as unthreatening as she could be.
Maybe she should go...
Leaving would be the worst thing she could do.
Maybe he'd give her a taste of her own medicine. But then, then
he gestured toward the great hall and she followed.
It was surprising how quickly the room they left continued what they were doing before the scene had started. Conversations and corner promises resumed. As soon as Erevos took the theater somewhere else, the rest lost interest at least, until they could spread the gossip to everyone who had missed the show.
There were fae and humans lingering in the hall in various states of undress. People were whispering compliments. Innocence was being corrupted. The corrupt were being humbled.
The hall lead to several rooms. They went into the first with an open door. It was a grand space, but then, the starlight palace was rarely without those. A quick glance around and she found that they were alone and when she knew that they were she couldn't help but shine for him. The illumination rivaled the flamed lit inside. Merry was aglow with all these feelings she couldn't stop from pouring out of her. She expelled her heart light for him and only for him.
"I wanted to see you, to go to you...There were many times I almost did but I couldn't..." she started.
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Erevos was in no state to pay much attention to the goings on of Fae and humans around them as they made their way down the great hall. He felt as though his black mood and violent outburst had absolutely no place among such lavish surroundings, among individuals locked in passion and pleasure, exploring their curiosities.
He'd been away for too long. This was a mistake, coming back. This night, of all nights. He should have stayed within the mortal realms, content in his destruction, clearing out the old to bring in the new; content to whisk away the souls of the dying. Content in his domain. Not a stranger like he felt now, out of place, out of control.
What was it she had said to him? She knew he'd be here, that she had to wait? He replayed her earlier words in his head, but it was useless. They were riddles, as was typical with Merry. She spoke such a different language than he. She was not coarse, cutting, or graceless in her communication. She wove tales, hinted at possibilities, and painted pictures with her words. He felt like a battering ram in comparison.
Once they were within the room, Erevos pushed the grand ornate door shut, closing out the sounds of the party so that it was now only the two of them. And the pounding of his heart beat.
And oh, the way she shone. Her light flowed outward, stole the breath from his lungs and made his shadows retreat and dissolve. In all of existence, she was the only one who had that particular effect on him. There was once a time he'd believed she shone that way purely for him. Now, he wasn't so sure. It had been so long. So much had changed. And she appeared to be in no pain right now, not like he was.
Erevos took a step toward her. Keeping a distance, still, as he looked into her eyes, piercing, demanding. "Why..." a tremor of vulnerability laced through his voice, against his will. Wrath faded back into hurt, and he felt like he was nothing but an open wound, laid bare before her.
"I want to know why you left me, Merry."
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"I didn't leave you, Heart of Mine." She took a breath, let the question he had asked swell up from within her and then she closed her eyes. A tear dropped like a diamond rolling down her cheek. "I had to go away. You had to be apart from me just for a while. Not forever. Just until...now." she tried to simplify it, and in doing so she probably made it seem like it was less traumatic for her than it was for him, that she hadn't yearned as he had, hadn't dreamed endless scenarios of their reuniting.
She was tempted to run to him, to embrace him, to smooth her cheek across his and then claim his mouth with hers.
But he was a wounded animal so she carefully she took a step forward, instead. Just one.
"You had so much oblivion to see to, Erevos. You wanted to be with me, and I want to be with you. But if we had run away then, had been together it would have caused a rift." It sounded like such a little reason compared to all these big feelings she had.
"I'm sorry...." she told him and then took another step forward. "I'll leave you alone if you want me to." She was sure that wasn't possible, but just like all of the other intentions she had with him, she meant it. She'd try. "I'll leave the party if that's what you want. I've been here for a spell, seen to a few and if my presence here bothers you, then I will leave, and you can visit for the rest of the feast."
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Riddles. More riddles. Nothing was straightforward, no clear answer in sight. Frustration rippled through him, he took a step back from her advance and fought the urge to pace the room. He couldn't be still. There was so much emotion roiling within him, the room could barely contain it.
He strode toward the window, needing to look at something other than her face. He was lost to the dark ripples of her hair, the enchanting gleam of her eyes, the shape of her mouth. She was such a temptation to him. His appetite for her had always been voracious, made only more intense now due to the conflict of emotion he felt for her and the sheer span of years they had been apart.
Her apology fell into the space between them, meaningless to his ears. Erevos fixed his gaze intently on the sights beyond the window, he listened but did not respond initially to her invitation that she leave the party, leave him be. A moment passed and he merely nodded. Yes. She should leave. He scrubbed a hand down along his face.
And then, before he was truly aware of it, his body seemed to move without his permission, and suddenly he was in front of her. Leaning down slowly into her space, though there was no trace of provocation this time.
"Merry..." he whispered, jagged and raw. He longed to touch her cheek, where the droplet of a tear had been. His eyes slid shut and he breathed her in, unabashedly; the tip of his nose barely brushing against hers. He felt that slight contact send a shock wave all throughout his body.
There was so much he wanted to say to her in that moment. He wanted to tell her what it had been like for him, all those years. He wanted her to feel that, as he had felt it; to suffer as he had suffered. He didn't care about oblivion, or the rift it would have caused, she'd said, for them to be together. He was selfish and only wanted her to himself, all else be damned. He wanted to tell her how each night without her beside him stretched on like an eternity, bleak and devoid of rest. How he could barely stand to be outside beneath the vast expanse of a starlit sky, seeing her essence, her face in every constellation. How he fractured each time the mortals asked him, over and over; why it was their fate to die...
Fate. Every corner of the universe he wandered, he couldn't escape her.
With a sharp exhale, Erevos forced himself to step back, ripping himself away from her intoxicating proximity.
"Tell me you did not miss me. That you did not mourn my absence. Tell me that you moved on," he demanded, tone hard and determined.
"Please." It went against his very nature to utter such a word, the taste of it was foreign on his tongue. But this, he felt like he needed more than anything in that moment. He wanted to let her go; for all the pain it caused him to hold on. He didn't even know if it would be possible to do so.
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The plea was like a punch to the gut. She knew what Erevos was after. He was asking her to let him go. She closed her eyes, searched the threads of possibilities to see what might happen if she closed him off; if she did his bidding and released him.
It was not good.
Neither was his pain.
But...could she do it? Even until their destinies were set to twist around the other again, could she do it? Sooner or later they would cross again, tangle up together because that was just too powerful a part of their very natures. But maybe she could give him some mercy until then.
"Is that what you really want?" She asked the question but it was not really for him.
Her head shook, just an indication that what was in her heart and what was in her head differed vastly. She searched for some truth that might give him what he was looking for.
Be merciful It was so very rare that she could be.
"I did not mourn your absence." another tear rolled down her cheek.
This was true. It was true because Merry knew that she would see Erevos again and Merry could cling to that. He couldn't, and she knew that must have been painful for him. But, the grief was necessary. She had hoped that he would understand that to tear herself from him finally would be like bleeding out all of the contents of her heart only to keep walking, emotionally dead inside.
They would always meet again. That was their fate...until the end. But that's a story for another time.
"Maybe I shouldn't have come to you...I." She stopped herself from tearing him apart any more than she already had.
She moved to the door to leave him, to do what he wanted her to do and let him alone. As soon as she turned the tears started and she put a hand to her mouth to stop her emitting any sounds of anguish. Her hand clasped the handle and pulled the door open. She didn't look back at him when she went through the opening, back into the hall.
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There was the sound of the door sliding shut, then there was nothing. Deafening, empty silence. He felt suffocated by the walls of the room, hated being confined by what he could see and touch in that moment. Erevos let her leave, without uttering a word of protest, without moving to stop her. He let her slip through his grasp once more.
Because he had felt the truth in her words. I did not mourn your absence.It had sliced through him, a very real, tangible agony that he fought to contain. She'd given him what he asked for. And in that, he supposed there was some ...kindness. So this was best, he'd decided. He wanted to forget her. Wanted to let her go. This is what you want. Better to lose her now, than keep holding on for eternity in pain.. He forced himself to take that decision in, carve it into his heart if necessary.
Though even now, when all he'd wanted was to simply feel that invisible tether to her dissolve and free him of this constant, nagging ache... still that link remained. He couldn't understand it, and it enraged him. He simply wanted ... to be done.
She'd asked him if this was what he really wanted... He knew, of course, that it wasn't. But that didn't matter. What he wanted was irrelevant. It was what he could bear, that was the better question.
And in that moment, when she'd stood before him, open and shining and warm... as bright as he'd remembered her, Erevos couldn't bear the thought of having her, only to lose her all over again whenever the stars deemed it... necessary. He had little patience when she spoke of matters of fate, and destiny, because he hated the concept of being at the mercy of any force, greater than he, greater than Death. And Fate was a force that even he could not deny. They were equals in so many ways, both of their domains forever linked together, forever influencing each other.
With a long, defeated sigh; Erevos wandered numbly toward one of the ornate chairs in the room, and sat. Letting the darkness and shadow unfurl around him and fill the room. He couldn't leave just yet. Every part of him broadcasted what he felt and thought, every shield was down, every emotion bare and raw. That was not something he wished for others to witness. So he would sit here, in silence, until he could take every last piece of what he felt and place it back down deep within him, hidden away. Everything she had unearthed, he would bury, once more.
On and on. A cycle he wished would have an ending, but did not.
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