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 Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 1:22 pm
She hadn't come immediately. There had been some time spent alone, thinking. Putting herself in order, only to tear herself apart and come undone. All of it had to be done alone, because she never wanted him to see her like this. She always wanted to be strong around Herryk, because he was strong. She wanted to be a rock, confident and self-assured. That was the image she wanted. That was who she needed to be.
And there was none of that left.
So she'd spent a whole lot of time destroying her room. It felt cathartic, ripping all of sheets to shreds and pulling apart her furniture until it was nothing but tatters and wood. Maybe it gave her the strength to finally talk to him, instead of hiding behind her disease and weakness. When she left her room, she felt proud that she was leaving a scene of utter and complete destruction. She walked out of the room proud, pulling pieces of foxfire fluff out of her hair.
But when she arrived at his door, all of that false built up pride was gone. She knew her face looked ashen and fallen, and as much as she tried to hide it, she couldn't be what she wanted to be for him.
So once more, Freya was left with facing Herryk as a ghoul less than who he'd always wanted. Less than what she'd always wanted to be.
Just.
Less.
She knocked on Herryk's door and waited.
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Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 1:32 pm
He was brooding. Always brooding. Each moment that he spent attempting to get back on the right path only reminded him of the ache that was always there, the hunger that was never sated. Brooding helped: allowing himself to linger on the thoughts that plagued him made him feel just a little better. The dark, disgusting urges that roiled within him would not be denied. They would not be quelled or forgotten. They would not be set aside, they would not be dealt with later.
The knock at the door jerked him from his thoughts. Herryk wanted to ignore it, to sink back into the lurching black depths of his thoughts. They pulled at him, breaking him down, ripping him to bits that he didn't care to put back together. His focus had shifted, and he was utterly lost to the memories that had consumed him whole.
Forcing himself to his feet, Herryk shuffled to the door. Clad in his cape, loincloth, boots and leather leggings, Herryk was not dressed to impressed. He didn't even know who it could be, and he didn't really care.
The door swung open. He narrowed his eyes, feeling for one moment as if the ground was falling out from beneath him. She was beautiful, his Freya - but like a dangerous thick fog, once more his thoughts swept over him, clouding his mind. He did not smile at her. He did not sweep her into his arms. He did not press a kiss to the pretty curve of her lips, and he did not laugh the loud and boisterous boom that he had countless times before upon opening his door to be greeted by his beloved.
No, he did none of these things. Herryk merely turned from the door, leaving it open, as he went to slouch once more in the chair that had recently been vacated. His expression was dark, one brow lifting just slightly as he waited for her to speak.
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Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 1:50 pm
When Herryk opened the door, Freya had one single moment where everything almost felt right. She looked up at him, saw all the features of the man she'd fallen in love with, and almost smiled.
Then he turned, and walked away, and every ounce of that moment shattered into a million pieces on the floor.
Her jaw dropped open in surprise. This was how he greeted her after all this time shut away. She thought she'd kept herself holed up, but she hadn't even realized that he'd done the same. And now that she'd finally come to him, he'd welcomed her with nothing. Freya felt herself crack, from head to toe. She didn't know what she'd expected, but it wasn't this.
She stepped in, closed the door behind her, and her eyes narrowed with an emotion she hadn't felt in a long time. Hot blooded anger.
It actually felt good.
"Hallo teh yeh too, stranger." She barked out. She was practically yelling at him already. This was.. not the way she thought this would go.
Why did it feel so good to fight with him? It felt like she was alive again.
And nothing about that seemed healthy.
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Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 2:01 pm
He'd expected that sort of response from her. She'd never really held back. It'd been one of the things he'd loved about her for so long. For an instant he shoved aside all of his thoughts and allowed himself to feel a sudden burning surge of anger. At her.
How long had he been locked up in his room? It'd been shortly after Battle of the Bands, hadn't it? It felt like forever ago. And she'd never stopped by to see him, to check on him. He was feeling irrational. Herryk rolled his shoulders back and glanced over his shoulder at her.
"If Freya has come only to fight, Herryk has no interest," he almost-growled, his posture tensing. He sounded exhausted, but there was a purr of red-hot rage in his tone that almost seemed to dare her.
Dare her to what? Herryk didn't exactly know, but there was a tension that vibrated just beneath his skin. He wanted to go on, he wanted to say that he thought she'd forgotten about him... but he didn't. It hurt too much - but in truth, this interaction felt almost invigorating. He'd been so focused on the need that he'd forgotten how it felt to clash with Freya.
He'd missed her. He'd missed her, but...
The dark tendrils of that same familiar ache writhed across his mind, curling their clawed wispy fingers back into the forefront of his mind.
They would not be set aside. They would not be forgotten.
"It is... so nice of Freya to come by."
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Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 2:26 pm
No interest.
Everything Freya had come here to talk about was forgotten in a rush, as she stormed closer, fists tightening. He had no interest. Well, that was always nice to hear.
"Yeh knows I'm thoughtful like that. Just thought I'd stops by and sees how yehr doings, since yehr too busy wankings off teh yehrself teh finds out how I'm doings." Her tongue was getting away from her, too quickly. She couldn't control herself. She could never control herself around Herryk. Her chest heaved in sharp, painful breaths. "How's things? Good? Ja? Well SO GLAD WE HAD THIS TALKS."
As she screamed, she picked up a little glass bowl sitting on a table nearby, filled with marbles, and threw it like a discus at the wall. It shattered at her last word, punctuating it nicely.
And now, she smiled. It was a vicious little thing, but oh, it felt good to smile. Even if her eyes were burning with anger, she couldn't help herself.
It was official. This was definitely not how she thought this conversation was going to go.
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Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 2:40 pm
He watched impassively as she threw the bowl, gaze flickering across the shards of glass that rained down upon the floor. Only after the dust had settled did Herryk turn to gaze upon Freya once more, arms slowly coming up to cross over his chest.
"Oh, yes. It is always about Freya, hmm? Never about Herryk. Freya doesn't care what is going on in Herryk's mind. Freya doesn't want to know about Herryk's thoughts - it is only that Herryk has not stopped by to see Freya... because.. how did Freya put it?"
He paused.
"Ah, because Herryk is 'too busy wanking offs teh himself,'" he mimicked her tone and inflection, "to worry about Freya."
Herryk's placid expression shifted suddenly. It became twisted, ugly. He bared his teeth and moved in towards her.
"Freya is such a selfish ghoul if this is what she thought Herryk was doing. A selfish, stupid ghoul."
He couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was when she looked like this, all full of fire and righteousness.
"Why has Freya come here? To break all of Herryk's things?" A small part of him screamed hold me, I need you, love me, I want you, I'm broken, fix me but the carnivorous hunger within him would not allow for him to admit such a weakness, such emotion.
Instead, he focused on the rage. The anger mixed with a little bit of hurt over the fact that she had not come sooner.
"Or does Freya need something?" His tone insinuated that she only came around when she needed something from him, ever though such a thing was false.
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Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 2:48 pm
She looked absolutely scandalized. Was it always about her? Was all of this happening because she was just being selfish? It was entirely possible. She took a step back, pulling away from the gravity his presence forced upon her.
In the end, she had no answers. She didn't even know if she could stay angry anymore. Maybe he was right. Right about everything. Her face fell in dismay, and she stared down at the floor.
"I don't knows why I'm here anymore." Her soft voice felt sharper than any scream. "I thought.. if I comes here, I talks teh yeh, I tells yeh why I've been locked away, but all we does is fights."
She backed away further, her knees bending when she felt the softness of a plush seat. She fell in it, and pulled her knees up. "I does needs something, Herryk." She whispered. "And is not this."
She couldn't live off the adrenaline spike that yelling at him gave her. She wanted more. She wanted.. she wanted the past back. She wanted that day in the forest, when he shared everything. She wanted to feel whole again.
Her throat constricted with pain. She was lost, in every sense of the word, and too broken to find her way on her own.
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Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 3:10 pm
Her whispered words, her soft voice only served to infuriate him more. It disgusted him that they'd gotten to this point, and it enraged him that he couldn't bring himself to fix it. Perhaps he wasn't good enough for her, he wasn't good enough to continue patching their relationship up. Perhaps he resented her still for all the things she'd done, all the mistakes she'd made and had apologized for. Perhaps he just didn't care anymore. It was no longer a priority. "Herryk does not know what to say to Freya any longer. Herryk does not know how much more convincing Freya needs, and Herryk does not have the energy to watch Freya waste away before his very eyes." He remembered the conversation they'd had, how ugly things had gotten. Nothing had ever been resolved. So he'd turned to his own troubling thoughts, and he'd found solace in his solitude. "And Freya has no interest in Herryk's feelings," he remembered how she'd allied herself with the horsemen - Medea was to blame for all of his issues. After all, she'd been the one to cast the trance, and now here he was - craving the scent of blood and the crunch of bone beneath his heel, the wheezing final breaths and the moment when death took what was rightly his. "Herryk cannot give Freya what she needs, and perhaps Freya cannot give Herryk what he needs." What else could be said? Why make this messier than it needed to be? I need you I love you come into my arms and make this agony disappear I'm broken I'm broken I'm broken I cannot be fixed...
...I have been consumed. He kept silent, jaw clenched, arms crossed.
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Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 3:23 pm
Herryk sounded so distant and strange, like a person she'd never met telling her to get out of his way. At the mention of her weight loss, she realized that Herryk didn't even know the small, but significant steps of progress she'd taken in her slow but steady incline towards recovery. How could he? He had been there for none of it, and she knew that was her fault. Everything was her fault, at this point.
Freya let out a sharp little sigh, and curled out of her seat. She padded over to stand in front of him, and look at the man in the chair. For a split second, she saw something in him that she'd seen every day in the mirror for the last few months, and it frightened her. But she couldn't fathom that he could be as broken as she was, so the thought was neatly pushed out of her mind, and she moved forward to climb up like a cat, curling her tiny body up in his lap. She sat there just as she'd sat in the chair she'd vacated, her pose exactly the same.
"I wants everythings back the way they were." She admitted in a small, scared voice. Her eyes pinched closed, and tears fell from them. She tried to forget everything, and just think about the way things used to be. She tried so very hard.
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Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 4:15 pm
He hadn't been expecting her to come into his arms, to settle herself in his lap just as she had a million times before. In that tiny minuscule moment in time, Herryk could believe that things would get better. That this was all some strange phase that they could work through together. Having her this close felt so right, and if he could gather the courage to wrap his thick arms around her slender body, maybe he could believe that there would be brighter moments after he overcame the hungering dark that threatened to drag him under.
He was silent, broodingly so, as he watched her, wavering on that razors edge of dusk and dawn, day and night, dark and light. The power she held in that exact moment was unfathomable by either of them. Only she could save him, and he needed her so desperately to take him into her arms, to tell him all would be well, to assure him that she still loved him and would always love him - forever, two halves of one whole.
"Things change," Herryk rasped softly, his arms remaining crossed over his broad chest, "Herryk changed. Freya has changed."
He made no move to reach out, to touch her. Herryk remained tense, jaw clenched.
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Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 4:25 pm
As she sat in Herryk's lap, forcing her eyes closed so tightly that she could forget where she was, she almost thought she could convince herself. But as seconds turned into minutes, Freya realized that she felt like she was just sitting in another chair. There was nothing to indicate that Herryk was there, at all.
Her body shuddered in a silent, painful sob.
"I knew this would happens." She muttered out through a cracked voice. "Somehow, I always knew." She unfurled herself, turned around, and looked right at him. Her face was lined with tears, and her lower lip jutted out painfully, highlighting the helpless frown her face sported.
He didn't even want to touch her.
"Yehr right, yeh knows." Her words came out in a quiet, but bitter laugh. "We've both changed. I thinks, we changed lots more than either of us even knows." Her eyes stared down at his collar bone for a moment, and her fingers reached up to brush the long stretch of skin. Then she pulled them away, and wrapped her arms around herself. "I don't knows who yeh are anymore, Herryk. And yeh don't knows who I am, either." She sniffed. "But I still loves yeh. I don't thinks that part of me can change. I don't thinks it'll ever change."
She loved him. It just wasn't enough to bring him back from wherever he'd buried himself.
She nodded, just once. What she was nodding about was unclear. But she moved to climb off his lap, and give him the freedom from her burden that he so desperately seemed to need.
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Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 4:46 pm
He jumped just slightly, a mere tightening of muscles when she brushed her fingers along his clavicle. Despite the fact that he had no need for breathing, his breath hitched slightly, the sound filled with a yearning desperation for what he needed.
Her.
He needed her arms around him, her voice whispering in his ear that all would be well, that they could work through this together, that he was not a creation borne of hate and death and destruction. That he deserved to live a happy life together, with her, and that someday they would be married and perhaps even visit the pumpkin patch and sprout little Valkyries of their own. All of these reassurances, he needed them so desperately that the wave of emotion threatened to choke him completely.
Almost as if he could not bear to be parted from her, as if he could not exist without the touch of her pale hand against his dark, cool flesh, Herryk reached out as she slipped from his lap and grasped her hand within the calloused, chilled breadth of his hand.
Memories barraged him, memories that he'd made since meeting her. Their first meeting at the obstacle course where they'd arm wrestled. Their first official date with the lobsters. Shopping for dresses. Meeting her family. The special lake where Freya had taken him. Their first intimate moment together. The forest where he'd been 'born' - the fights that had always ended in passion. His hand tightened on her more delicate, feminine fingers for the briefest moment, eyes lifting to meet hers. They were filled with something, a strange emotion that he couldn't place. Desperation? Neediness? A flash of something - regret?
The pleasant memories swayed, morphed into something different, something terrible. His hand tightened for a brief moment as his mouth wrenched downward, his expression darkening as he released her hand.
She didn't know who he was anymore? Neither did he.
"Goodbye, Freya."
Save me.
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Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 5:10 pm
It was the moment his hand grabbed her that she felt her spirit break. This was the moment when he would pull her in and make her forget how to breathe with his kisses. This was the moment where he would fix everything with just a touch. This was the moment everything would right itself again, and all of the pain, all of the loneliness, all of the suffering would have been worth it.
Just for this moment.
The moment that never came.
She'd just told him that she still loved him. That her heart couldn't change just because they were going through a 'rough patch'. She knew he was hurting, and she wanted to fix every ache inside of him, but she'd just told him that she loved him..
..and his answer was goodbye.
She stared at the man in the chair. Her eyes thinned in anger. Her heart stuttered with agonizing pain. And in that one, clear moment, she knew exactly what she had to do.
Freya padded back to bend forward, leaning her head towards his and placing her lips flush against his. It wasn't a goodbye kiss. It was something different, something more painful. Her lips were forceful, pulling his and demanding their attention. It was more than a goodbye kiss - it was a kiss to take back all of her kisses.
When she pulled away, her eyes were bright with strength and anger.
"Goodbye, Herryk." She whispered against his lips. "I will loves yeh for the rest of my life."
It was the kind of burden she knew she deserved. And now, now that he'd refused to tell her he loved her back, she was ready to carry it.
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Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 8:48 pm
His eyes closed as she pressed her lips against his, and he could taste the real meaning behind the kiss. All of the kisses they'd shared, every intimate moment where their bodies had become on, each and every touch and gesture that had mirrored the love that he had for her flashed before his eyes - and she was pulling away too soon, too soon too soon too soon and he could taste nothing but the bitter regret that he could never really be what she deserved.
He could never give her all of the things he'd wanted to before things had changed for both of them.
He said nothing in return.
Herryk kept the facade up until she slipped through the door. Expressionless, no outward sign of the broken boil that lived within. No minuscule hint gave way to the desperate, heartbroken boil that still struggled to survive.
When the door closed behind his beloved, all was silent for a long time as he sat with only his own thoughts for company. Five minutes, passed. Ten. An hour. His thoughts, disjointed and mangled, lurched through his mind as he lifted his hands to his face and promptly burst into tears. A moment of weakness, just a moment to mourn over the only light that had been truly left in his life. His beloved, his ladybird, his Freya - she was his no longer.
The void left behind was a monstrosity, achingly poignant as he grieved the loss of the only good thing that had remained.
Just a moment. Just this one, small moment in time before he was once again consumed by the hunger that lurked just beneath the surface.
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