#i think lynette.exe just crashed so she decided to leave and that we can wrap up soonish unless lyney would like to stop her :salute:

[phantomiaou]

he cannot be the heir father needs if he is still the brother lynette wants.

unspoken, like so much else they have always been able to communicate because they are close. but this time what they say does not bring them closer; it is not a product of warmth, it is the flame that sets that bridge of theirs ablaze in the dying light of sunset.

how many ways does a heart break? ever the one for efficiency, her blade prefers to twist between the fourth and fifth rib. if wine is involved, one vial of arsenic. when splatters are fine, go for the jugular. for slower collapse, cut oxygen with anemo. lynette cannot count on all of her fingers and toes how many methods she has employed, how many times she has wrought each without blinking.

but this one she does not understand. she turns it over and over in her palms and comes up with nothing. all she can make out is how much it bleeds, throbs, and how much she wants to rip it out of her chest.

"i see."  all of it. none of it.

her voice comes out wooden. lynette sits there motionless and does not even know what expression she must be making—perhaps the same one as always, that of a polished stage prop—but slowly, the throbbing stalls to a halt.

(just like the key of a clockwork doll. but lynette is a well-oiled machine. she will still be the sister lyney needs, whichever lyney she gets, and if that is a king at the top in need of a sword, she can forge herself into just that. she can show him what that means.)

"get some rest."  so the statue at lyney's bedside finally stirs, collecting her dish and tray with the faintest clatter of ceramic. lyney's assistant has never been the type to speak for the sake of speaking, so she spares him from empty words. there are not enough she could say to fill the space between them, anyway.  "if you'd like more soup later, there's still a large pot downstairs."

lyney cannot be the heir father needs if he is still the brother lynette wants.

then does he think all of this makes him the brother lynette needs?

(if this were any question she had thought of, it would not matter—for it dies in a clockwork cavity encased by a ribcage. it dies in the kindling of a hearth, to flames, the lamentation of a sister stung by love shaped like betrayal...)

lynette stands, rewinds her key, and sees herself to the same door that had once let her inside.

        home is the first grave.

🌢 gravity breaking our kneecaps just to show us the sky ★