desolation | ♕ DUPLICITY

[ He won't deny, he could have left. He needn't have asked her anything that he did. He needn't have promised. ]

Something in us is the same.

If you'd had the chance, you would not have looked away.

I am nothing like you.

[ but she is.

perhaps that is what angers her the most. ]

You had no right to look within me as you did.
The girl you met that night is dead and you'd do best not to seek her out again.

[ She is. ]

[ — but that doesn't sting. He doesn't need to hear an admittance of kinship from her. Arthur knows they are bound together, all that matters now is whether she cuts the knot or it keeps tightening, around them both. He can walk the path of fate if that's what needed of him. He can keep being near her no matter what. ]

So it seems.

My promise hasn't changed.

[ Not the promise of a prince or the oath of a knight, but of one familiar soul to another. He will help her. ]

[ it is his stubborness she hates most, but it's also merely another quality they share well, the insistence to strive forward once a goal is set in their mind. if only he could let go of this ridiculous endeavor to see through to her.

she doesn't think she'll crumble so easily, but she doesn't know how far he'll go, either. ]

I no longer need it.

I am not so frail as to need your hand to stand me up. I have taken care of myself alone far longer than you could understand, and I am in no need of rescue.

[ — he would not like to be so pressing that part of her crumbles away. Perhaps, only the part that kept those chains on her, or the wounds fresh. ]

[ Arthur'd nursed his for years, and for years they'd followed him even to sleep. He'd been alone then. ]

[ Can he leave her alone now? He knows the answer. ]

I understand.

[ and, after it, ]

I will still be here, when you stand up.

And behind you, when you move forward.

[ she doesn't respond again. not tonight.

but regrettably, his words do not leave her and she fears that with her, they will stay, left to circle in her thoughts for the foreseeable future. already, she has dreamt of his face, nothing of visible context, but enough that she knows their fates are tied one way or another.

she won't reply, neither to push him away again, knowing well that he carries enough stubbornness to ignore it, nor to give him the satisfaction that she's listening.

right now, she needs time, she thinks. either to accept it as it is or to will herself to better keep herself at a distance — of which it is, she does not yet know. ]

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