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Help me.
Please.
There are things I cannot tell you.
I know how you’ll react. What you’ll do.
I cannot let you.
I cannot even beg silently, because if I do, I’m afraid that you’ll find out.
Do you want to know how I think of you?
You stand in the great hall in polished ceremonial armor with your hands behind your back and a solemn set to your jaw, perfectly still as you have been the entirety of the hour, and you are just and composed, centered and kind, and then Sharena elbows you, and you break out in the smallest of smiles, and then you see me, and you smile again, because in your estimation, I am someone who deserves that from you.
Do you want to know how I think of you?
He poses in the great hall as if he is worth something, as if this triviality has taught him what it means to suffer, but – he will learn, we will show him, when we split his head open and when we hook his guts on the tip of our spear, when we let him feel the cold of steel in his stomach, when he dies pathetic, unarmed, and in disbelief. And when the guards come to meet us, you will be invincible, and Askr will die.
Askr must die.
I-
I
I
No. No, I’m sorry. My apologies. Please, elos. Must you know? When I am like that, and I try to think of you doing well, it hurts me. It feels like an injury. It feels as if I have been frozen from the inside out, and shattered, and the only one left is the dark god whispering comforts.
At home, I was to spellcast. I was to take up ice magic.
Had things gone differently, you would be dead now.
You-
You would
would, would, would
I
No. It’s happening more frequently. The times when everything is difficult, when even writing grows difficult for me. Staying still becomes impossible, staying focused, staying seated, it all becomes beyond me. Yet I cannot allow it to be beyond me. You are looking at me, right now, as I write this. There is concern in your eyes, vigilant, and so careful. You believe in me. If I rise, distraught, you will question it. You will ask what could I possibly be doing to cause myself such distress, what could I possibly be writing? You wouldn’t understand the text, and that would alarm you more.
“What troubles you?” you would say, and if I was unfortunate, you’d put your hand on my shoulder, and you would hold it there, steady.
“I haven’t written in Emblian in six years,” I’d say, if I could breathe. “I’ve been too afraid.”
I no longer write in Emblian. You recognize far it too well.
This is the language that my mother taught me, Alfonse.
Sometimes, I think, that if it had just been her, if she’d stayed where she was, if my father had never encountered her, if my father had never been, if Embla had never been, then I’d never be, and you and Sharena would be safer. You would be safer, and you would be happier.
You would be happier, had I never existed.
You would be safer, were I dead.
This is the language that my mother taught me, elos. Do you like it?
Aðeloseð, elos.
I love you, my love.
I could not tell you any other way.
Because if you realize…if you find out…
To leave is to hurt you.
To stay is to hurt you.
Emblian lacks a distinction between future and present tense, eloslosa.
As does my mother’s language.
Askran has eight.
Do you realize that none of these tongues belong to me?
That I have no speech?
That I have no home?
Askr belongs to Askr, and Embla belongs to Embla, and I-
I would belong to you, if you would have me. But were you to have me, I would…
I would…
I
I
His hand on our shoulder and we’ll break his wrist, twist it and let the bone show, grey and ashen the Askran bastard, and if you fight me, Emblian, we’ll puncture his eyes with the fragments-
NO.
Gods, please, no.
Please.
Please don’t smile at me. Please don’t walk over here, not now.
I am fine. I’m alright. I’m well.
I am.
Alfonse, do you understand what you mean to me? I came here afraid, and Askr welcomed me, and you welcomed me, and I decided to use that. To destroy Embla, to destroy the place where I had once lived and so, I thought was home.
And when I finally realized that Embla wasn’t home, that this place was, I didn’t want to use you anymore. I would have left, but it was far too late. By then, I needed to stay. I could not hold this evil thing Embla granted me on my own. I thought I could fight it. You were my support. You were my strength. My home was my strength.
Then I hurt you, and you didn’t know it. And I couldn’t tell the difference between the voice in my head that was crying out in shame and the one that was right and victorious, and I realized, eloska.
This place is not my home, either. As much as I would like it to be.
How much would I like it to be.
But I was born to be in between. To be without. This Emblian thing is a part of me, and it always was, and it always is, and it always is. To stay is to hurt you, to leave is to hurt you too, and should I live these dozen years we’ve spent together all over again, nothing will change.
I don’t know what to do.
I don’t…
I don’t know how to protect you.
All that I want – all that I truly, deeply want – is for things to stay as they are now. To be near you. To hear you every day. To see you. The light precision of your footsteps on stone as you walk beside me. The sunset falling against your hair and illuminating every dark trace of blue. The way you blush, so faintly, whenever I let my hand be too close to yours. The way I feel, if only for a moment, that this curse in my blood has been replaced by something made of lighting rather than ice whenever your hand slowly closes the distance, however far it may be, inching over, moving one finger at a time until you can enclose my hand in yours.
You glance over, and I glance over, and you smile, and I know that this can only end poorly, and it hurts, so badly.
But in those moments, the contact is enough. It’s enough, because all I want is to know that you look upon me with some degree of regard.
I dare not hope for more than that.
I dare not hope that I could love you without reservation.
I dare not hope that you could…could love me, without…
But you do, don’t you?
If only I would accept.
But I cannot.
I know what you would do.
With no regards to what I could do to you, you would try to help.
But you cannot.
And were you to know…
Were you to try…
Were you to look at me no longer as myself, but as someone who could hurt you…
Were you ever to be as afraid of me as you should be…
The reason there is me, is you. You are the reason for the version of me I have been pretending to be, lately. The version of me that would never do you harm. If you abandon that version of me…
The stronger part of me is demanding that I stand up and cut your skin from your arms and watch you bleed.
The other part of me believes - I will not hurt you.
I will not hurt you.
You are my love, my home, elos, embr.
And yet…what else can I do?
What else is there for me? For you?
To leave is to hurt you. To stay means you'll die.
There is no ending to my life where I don’t injure you.
There is no ending to my life where you are well.
And there has to be an ending where you are well.
There has to be.
Please…tell me I did not condemn you to this fate. Tell me that my existence here has meant something good for you, that I didn’t come into your life only to cause you pain, and sadness. Tell me there is a path that ends with your happiness. With my freedom. Tell me, please, because I don’t see one. And there has to be one. Help me, please, eloska. Tell me how I can make this right. Tell me there’s a way.
Please, tell me that there is a way.
Gods, please.
Tell me that I will not hurt you.