#heavy liberation of my own twst theories :')

[llondonfog]

my whole life and all my heart; you're my whole life and all my heart.

part 1/?

the human child cries in the shattered remains of its cradle, its raspy wails an echo of the nameless grief swallowing lilia's stilled and barren heart whole (and what a lie that is— his grief certainly bears a name, two in fact, and he cannot speak of them, cannot think of them lest he open his mouth and choke on the ash-slick shards of his own anguished screams—). his fingers tremble around the wrapped handle of his weapon, and if baul happens to notice, then he is wise enough not to say anything.

he could kill it now. he could smite it from existence, send it hurtling towards the same miserable and all too merciful fate that had befallen its damnable progenitors. he can taste it— the tantalizing blush of blood against the battle-lust atmosphere, the smooth swing of his blade cleaving air and infant in two.

he could kill it now. he could.

(he cannot. it had been one of her last requests, he cannot desecrate her wishes though oh, how he rages to—)

"i hate you," he snarls down at the sniveling little beast with its scrunched up watery eyes, and his talons score gouges deep into the edge of the delicately painted cradle. "you have taken everything from us, and i hate you."

"...you will do then as the queen wishes?" dear baul, voice a low and thick dam behind him that creaks and groans beneath the weight of the guttural despair weighing down upon them; he still calls her by empty title, as if that might manifest her return, and lilia half feral with grief nearly believes it might— who else but baul, the most staunchly loyal of them all, could recall her from the vanished? who else could call her back home?

(certainly not lilia— her failed general; her failed knight; her failed friend)

and thus, he is chained to this wretched creature by both grief and guilt. to have spared the child's life with the thought of her own, he simply could not understand it. by her grace alone does this human live, and he stiffly beckons a soldier over to pluck the hiccupping babe from its tucked in blankets.

and still, at death's very door, did she manage to best him; the audacity, to have made him promise to look after both children. for her son, he would have conquered the world. for this child, he would have ended it.

"and what of this place? will they not come searching for the prince?"

lilia does not look at the broken scales that litter the floor like obsidian glass. he does not look at the scorch marks scouring the stone walls. he does not look at the bloodstained sword.

"burn it, burn it to the ground." he kicks at the sagging cradle, the torn blankets spilling out in a weeping heap.

"and you can use that as kindling."