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prince sidon! ([personal profile] polliwog) wrote2024-02-24 05:01 pm

rosamund

🪡🦈
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[personal profile] rosebleed 2024-04-05 07:38 pm (UTC)(link)
[Heaven help her. She really will lose her mind if they carry on like this. Her mouth twists, she blinks quick. Recovers, but only just.]

...No. You're not selfish at all.

[They feel like voyeurs, these glittering gems of eyes. She has a mad urge to cover them. Don't look. At her, at him. If she could pluck them free and smooth the scales down she would. What more does this man have to go through? All in the name of, what? Nothing?

That's the most egregious part. She can't even think of a subpar moral to slap onto these trials.

Rosamund looks to the gorget and smiles. It's easier to address than the rest. Something that won't choke her with potent words.]


But of course.

[Even sat down Sidon is of a size. Rosamund brings herself onto the ledge at his side, sat high on her knees so she might reach around the back of his neck. The clasp is at the rear here, and she is working blind. Close, too, leaned into the gesture and so left face to face with him.

He has lovely eyes. Golden, but of a different tone than Ylfa's. It reminds her of things reflected underwater, when sunlight splits on brilliant colors in the current.

The clasp yields. She smoothes it around his neck and lets her hands rest at his front.]


Is that all right?
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[personal profile] rosebleed 2024-04-07 04:25 am (UTC)(link)
[The bump is a bit surprising. She giggles under her breath, a soundless chuff of air that draws a grin.]

You're welcome.

[He sits up and she sits down, yet the contact doesn't break. He cradles her hand to him, between broad chest and broad palm, heating her chilled fingers. She finds it cold down here at times so it's more than welcome. It keeps him solid in her mind. Not gone again, not yet.

She wonders if he worries about it too. He still bears the look of a man laid low, even if the worst wounds have evaporated. Why him? she thinks bitterly, Why twice?]


O-oh. A moral? [Terribly pointed questioning there. Rosamund laughs a little and shakes her head. The gesture doesn't come easy. It only braces her in fractions.] I suppose you could say there was.

It was during the week where we shared our memories. I heard similar things happened here, but, anyway, it was a mission of sorts, and it played very strongly on that. We saw each other's memories, except they'd been altered to reflect something perfect. And we had to take turns shaking each other out of it. Even if...the reality was honestly quite cruel to watch.
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[personal profile] rosebleed 2024-04-07 07:11 pm (UTC)(link)
[The extra gaze is unnerving. How active are these eyes? And who is watching through them? She wets her lips and does her best to ignore it. Theoretically she's always been watched, just not in ways she could perceive.]

Even when there is, that doesn't mean it's anything worth listening to. I've got — I don't know who all knows, but. That's kind of the rule in my world.

[Hardly like it matters now. Half the living figured her out, and she's certain gossip spreads among the dead. And what is there left to hide? She had been dragged up and forced to died on display. Dignity was out the window, and anyone could find her life story on a bookshelf.]

We're just simple little stories, following silly little morals that don't make much sense once you start to think twice about them. Things like True Love and always being good and never telling lies? None of that works in reality.

I thought I had already learned that lesson. Being here? It showed me I really hadn't.

[She purses her lips.]

Mine was...I had my Happy Ending. The way my story was supposed to go. I would have been married to a handsome prince, who'd rescued me and we'd fallen instantly in love the second we looked at each other, and my family and friends would all be there and there would never be a single problem ever again. La-di-dah-di-dah, that whole scene. Too good to be true.

[She laughs a little. It's so obvious from the outside, isn't it?]

Even if I know better to believe in all that, it was still very...very hard to let go of. To let it go back to bones and briars and...to leave him hanging there.
Edited 2024-04-07 19:13 (UTC)
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[personal profile] rosebleed 2024-04-07 09:12 pm (UTC)(link)
You were? [Curious. She'd thought they might have had a run in with one of Lucien's tricksy gods.] You'll tell me about it, won't you?

[And she's grateful for the new gesture, too. He's very comforting. You might not imagine it, with his size and taking after a creature of the deep. But they fit quite snugly together, and she's happy for the weight of him, the strength. Too often she feels frail standing on her own. Her fingers flex, find new grip on his palm. Her thumb rubs over the minute scales there, easing down the grain.]

...I think I prefer this too. [She bumps her head up softly, mindful of the briars. Puts her other arm around his back.] Not the way it's happened, but meeting you. Everyone, really, but you've been...very, very kind to me. And you're so much fun, and you're always honest, and you care so deeply for everyone.

It's an honour just to know you, Sidon. [She chuckles, soft and breathless.] My good Prince.
Edited (repeat phrasing) 2024-04-07 21:24 (UTC)
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[personal profile] rosebleed 2024-04-19 03:03 am (UTC)(link)
[Each successive story she hears of these places gets worse and worse. That it ties so closely with other she cares about (Lucien, who's suffered enough for several lifetimes) and comes to such acute ruination puts her heart in a vice grip. Rosamund swallows back a hard lump in her throat, head shaking as he comes to the end of the tale.]

The ways that they draw up all our old wounds is just insidious. I can't blame you for not wanting to fight them.

[Taking their forms, taking the shape of his family. What could you be expected to do?]

Still, it's a little sad. Even it couldn't find the will to keep living. [She presses her lips tight.] I'm sorry. That sounds awful, Sidon. You shouldn't have had to see or do any of it.

[Her head turns, just so she might press her nose against him, weld her cheek to his side. His chin stays firm atop her head. She breathes more evenly for it, letting her eyes close.

Dreadful that he had gone. Miraculous that he came back. That she can keep him so close, if not for always then for when it counts the most.]


I hope your head is more clear now. It hasn't lingered at all, has it?