#i'm in what we call the infinite puppy love stage

[thecolorsthree]

GUESS WHO GOT A NEW FUCKIN PARTNER 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️ ANOTHER ADDED TO THE POLY!!! MY NEW FAVE SLOTH ANOMALY EVER!!! ILYSM @renaissance-sys!!!!

[phantomiaou]

"whatever."  she turns up her nose and tilts her face away, little hmph belying the pleased flick of her ears. she cannot forget herself lest she lose herself in the perfect honey of lyney's words. everyone else may, and everyone else does, but not lynette. not even a little.

(it doesn't mean his praise doesn't make her happy.)

(lyney always makes her happy, except when he doesn't. except when he thinks he must leave her behind.)

lyney is more than entitled to cheat and pull out the puppy eyes, just as lynette is entitled to cheat and give him a hard time for it. maybe that is their god-given right as siblings—sweet older brother and squinting younger sister—and lynette would let nothing short of death rip that away from them. maybe not even death. while infinitely more reserved than her star-of-the-show brother, she too would stop at nothing to protect what they share. does he see that, she wonders? he might, but does he really? the winds, though invisible, are they any less cutting for how they do not shine in their destruction the way flame must?

she must act before the lizard's tail grows back.

because i spoke to father, says lyney, and she sets down the spoon, bowl of soup near empty. lynette stares at him unabashed, an all-seeing gaze that only lyney could deem worth loving. if he is as scared as his sister, he hides it remarkably. she expects nothing less from a master of illusion, a bearer of secrets, a hotel of lies and little lives in his care. the heat of every expectation is tremendous. no wonder he faltered in front of the flames.

"lyney," she starts. "no... brother."

because he will always be family, yes, no matter what she may call him—but lynette likes the sound of brother, too. lynette isn't ready to let go. lynette isn't ready to accept that she might have to. and she will do anything—anything—to ascertain that she will not have to. even if that means fighting him for them both.

her hand reaches for lyney's. let me speak this time, it says in the warmth of its squeeze.

"father told me and freminet about the house, too. if my guess is right, i don't think she'll change her mind about the succession."  her voice lowers, laden with thought.  "she wants to exterminate the idea of that throne being something easily transferrable."

all of this would mean nothing otherwise. clervie, crucabena, the move to poisson, the revelation of the hearth and the history it is trying to shed. even the 'freedom' extended to filliol and the others was nothing gained at the drop of a hat, if that could even truly be called freedom and not death of the self—and all of that, still, was withheld and granted solely on their father's terms.

"if you're doubting your capability, don't. if you're doubting whether or not you'll be enough, don't. what i'm more worried about is you thinking you'll have to be alone..."  but how? how can she convince lyney with his flawed sense of duty? if their positions were reversed, how would she begin to convince herself? violet eyes continue to pin him where he sits, unwilling to yield and heedless of how unsettling her stare always is. everybody wants charming, dazzling, romantic lyney's eyes on them—the same eyes she has right down to the lash—but not lynette's, for good reason.

she cannot afford to care how she must look, though. doesn't he see he's already begun to leave her, thinking like this?

"it'll be a long while from now, of course. you have time. we have time. but, brother... whatever happens, please don't keep shutting me out."  the curl of her fingers tightens. if it doesn't, they might quiver.  "i'm not a dove to be kept in a comfortable cage, only brought on stage with you as you please. tell me. are you scared i'll get hurt? what did father say?"

she does not ask lyney if he is scared of anything else. if they share even half of the same mind she can already guess.

        home is the first grave.

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