( just alina. for a moment, the wistful yearning in her stare shimmers so brightly that she has to shutter it from view, ducking her head to accept her bridal crown. she'll never be that girl again, but it feels fitting that paul should invoke her ghost in the little lost ruins of their chapel. where nature doesn't mourn what's dead and in disrepair — but learns to reclaim it, grow from the debris of what's been left behind. the way paul has, in his changing body. the way her insides have felt empty for days, but now feel overgrown, so fertile with feeling that it vines through her ribcage, makes her feel like there's no space left in her body for anything but her desperate want to live.
maybe she had never had to be just alina at all. maybe she had just had to be his. his normal. his version of a future that can fit just alina, and the enormity of what she is. an oddity, but maybe not too odd for him, after all. she smiles, and it's all dewy-eyed with untapped relief, flushed the rosy-pink of a girl trying to hold back from watering wildflowers with her tears. from one wet blink to the next, alina makes the executive that it still feels wrong — paul on his knees while she dangles on an altar, a deity above him — and sinks from her pedestal to her knees, a little too hastily.
she doesn't flinch when her bony knees meet the hard bite of stone. even as it threatens a bruise, it's better to exist on solid ground with him — not as a master or a maker, but as an equal. a little miserably: )
I don't have anything to give you. Not a ring, or a crown, or a family name. If we have children, I can't give them any legacy. I can't give our family my mother's culture, because I've never known it. I can barely give you mine, because my country never wanted to share it with me.
( maybe not so much like equals after all. what has he given her? the right to his family's name, if she should want it. the right to their heritage, the right to inherit his father's ring. it weighs heavily on her finger as she leans into a crawl, hands cautiously posed near each side of his knees. what can she give him? her eyes trail to where she knows his crysknife will be, snug and sacred against his hip. )
But I can give you this. ( it's a smooth motion — plucking and unsheathing it, wasting no time in the ceremony of slicing open her unmarred palm, flinching from the wet-warm of her blood. through a quiet murmur, ) My water. My life. I'd spend every drop and every day on you.
( a heavy pause, then. the cut slowly drip, drip, drips to feed the soil, red on white daisy petals. alina's eyes flutter questingly over his face, from temple to cheek to chin, back to his eyes. )
Could that be enough? To not only be your wife, but ... your family, too?
cw: self-injury, blood 😔 but like in a romantic way
maybe she had never had to be just alina at all. maybe she had just had to be his. his normal. his version of a future that can fit just alina, and the enormity of what she is. an oddity, but maybe not too odd for him, after all. she smiles, and it's all dewy-eyed with untapped relief, flushed the rosy-pink of a girl trying to hold back from watering wildflowers with her tears. from one wet blink to the next, alina makes the executive that it still feels wrong — paul on his knees while she dangles on an altar, a deity above him — and sinks from her pedestal to her knees, a little too hastily.
she doesn't flinch when her bony knees meet the hard bite of stone. even as it threatens a bruise, it's better to exist on solid ground with him — not as a master or a maker, but as an equal. a little miserably: )
I don't have anything to give you. Not a ring, or a crown, or a family name. If we have children, I can't give them any legacy. I can't give our family my mother's culture, because I've never known it. I can barely give you mine, because my country never wanted to share it with me.
( maybe not so much like equals after all. what has he given her? the right to his family's name, if she should want it. the right to their heritage, the right to inherit his father's ring. it weighs heavily on her finger as she leans into a crawl, hands cautiously posed near each side of his knees. what can she give him? her eyes trail to where she knows his crysknife will be, snug and sacred against his hip. )
But I can give you this. ( it's a smooth motion — plucking and unsheathing it, wasting no time in the ceremony of slicing open her unmarred palm, flinching from the wet-warm of her blood. through a quiet murmur, ) My water. My life. I'd spend every drop and every day on you.
( a heavy pause, then. the cut slowly drip, drip, drips to feed the soil, red on white daisy petals. alina's eyes flutter questingly over his face, from temple to cheek to chin, back to his eyes. )
Could that be enough? To not only be your wife, but ... your family, too?