*Weekly updates* "There are no leashes now, no bindings," she says, her voice a dark lullaby in the flickering candlelight, "and it is their sacrifice that gave us this. Nothing can ever repay it. No one can ever take it from us. So now, in this hal...
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It's an old memory, a brief, hazy sliver of time. The world around them is rocking back and forth, a slow, primal hum, and the moonlight shines out of the circular window, shimmering on the waves outside. Its glow is blue and splattered across the bed sheets, the tangled limbs underneath them, and her dark, silken hair which spreads like glittering oil across her bare shoulders and onto his chest.
She's tucked up next to him, arm slung around his waist, face buried in his chest, and he's thinking back on a different night, set amongst the glow of lantern light and laughter. They were tucked in a corner amidst ruckus, and her hands were on his face, warm, solid, holding him together as he spilled secrets.
"They're long dead."
In this memory, she's holding onto him still, as if to tether him to the earth when he feels set adrift in the cold, lonely sky. His hand reaches out, brushing a tendril of hair away from her golden shoulder.
"I love you," he murmurs into the crown of her hair, into her shuttered, dream-filled ears. He'll take her to Tazdahur after this, to a warm city full of life, a kaleidoscope of color and spices. He'll take her to Tazdahur and tell her then.
When Ben truly awakens it's to a still, empty room. There's not even the ghost of an indent on the bed next to him and when he turns all that shimmers in the pale moonlight is the thin arch of a hard, obsidian bow which sits, like a dead thing, keeping watch in the night.
It only makes sense he still dreams of her now.
Now that they are so close to the end.
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Chapter Notes: Ben remembers two scenes from Paragon: first is a continuation of the "Smoke and Starlight" chapter; while the italicized dialogue is from "Lights and Lanterns." Ben also mentions Tazdahur, the capital of Solveig (hellooooo Feuilles, you feisty curmudgeon), in "A Dream of Sunlight."
