Work Text:
Callum,
I’m sorry for breaking my promise, but I can’t put you in danger. I hope you can at least try to understand. I’ll be back.
Happy Birthday.
All of my love,
Rayla
———
Every time she doubted her choice, she tucked her chin down and raised her shoulders so that his scarf came up to brush against the bottom of her nose, and she inhaled. The damp scent of lake water still clung to the fabric, reminding her of the scent of morning dew. She had to breathe in deeper to find notes of Callum in the smell. Her eyes watered when she found the scent of parchment and grass and...electricity? Was that a scent or just an echo of the tingle that coursed through her whenever he was near? Either way, breathing in his scent made her heart ache, but her resolve strengthen.
That was why she had to leave. She had to keep this boy safe. Her sweet, sad, dumb, wonderful human prince who smelled like paper and made her heart soar, with magic in his soul and his smile and his eyes and his touch and...she needed him to be safe. She needed him to go home and eat jelly tarts with Ezran and draw in his sketchbook and maybe learn another spell or two. She could protect him. She could protect them. Probably. She hoped so, at least. Stray tears had been falling from her eyes since she began, and more dripped down onto her cheeks now.
She could stand the thought of herself dying, but if he’d come with her, they might both die, and what would the point of that be? Worse still, he might be taken from her and then she’d be alone, truly. Even more alone than she’d ever been. What would the point of the world losing him be? Why should he risk his life for her? And she knew from experience that if he were by her side, he would put himself in danger for her. A salty tear leaked into the corner of her mouth. He’d literally jumped off a cliff for her. Suddenly, irrationally, she was angry. She roughly wiped the tears off of her cheeks.
What the hell, Callum? Didn’t he know that she needed him alive? That her sacrifice was, yes, for the world, but also for Zym, for Ezran, and, of course, for him? That it meant nothing if they weren’t all safe and warm and alive and maybe even eventually happy? As soon as she had turned to find him falling after her, her resigned heart seemed to fall to the ground even faster. She scowled remembering her fleeting hope that his falling figure had been a figment of her imagination. Didn’t he understand how heartbreaking it was to see the biggest piece of her heart, the one comforting justification that kept flying through her mind as she fell, falling after her?
Lightning crackled across the sky ahead. She jumped, and her anger dissolved as the light faded from the sky.
She shook her head remembering all of the stupid, stupid, dangerous things he’d done for her sake. She couldn’t let him be in a position where he would jump off of a cliff, literally or metaphorically, for her again, no matter how much it hurt her to be apart from him. No matter how much her broken promise, her lies, her deception...hurt him. A broken heart, still beating, was better than...she shivered imagining the icy prison of her nightmares. She could endure being alone as long as she knew he was okay.
Safe. Warm. Alive. Those were the priorities. She hoped happy would come along too.
Lightning split the sky again and a small smile turned the corners of her mouth upward, feeling somehow more connected to him seeing his kind of magic light up the night. She wondered if he’d look at the moon in her absence and think the same thing. She hoped so. She hoped he would want to think of her, but she couldn’t be so sure that he would after what she’d done to him. Her smile faded.
She wondered if, when he looked back on last night, he’d understand the fervor of her kiss when she’d stopped dead in her tracks and attached herself to him on their walk back from the Nexus. Her arms had clung around his neck tensely while his lips moved against hers. His fingers had pressed against her waist firmly, comfortingly, and he’d sighed into their kiss. She’d whispered I love you again as they parted their lips and joined their hands.
She pressed her lips together beneath his scarf now remembering, savoring...wondering if it might’ve been their last kiss. She clasped her hands together, wishing his warm hand was holding onto hers. Surely, he could still love her after this. He wouldn’t just...stop, right? Tears sprung to her eyes again, stinging hot tears, thinking about how he’d cry and maybe even shout in anger and hurt and betrayal when he realized that she’d left without him. Maybe if he did hate her after all this, she could still ask for one more. One last kiss, once she was sure he was safe.
She couldn’t think about how she’d hurt him. She couldn’t turn back, and that line of thinking would send her directly back into his arms. She let her aching heart soften at the thought. She imagined showing up to find him distraught and hurt, and immediately pulling him into her arms and kissing away the pain. She imagined pressing her cheek against his mop of brown hair as she held him and then wrapping his scarf back around his neck lovingly. She imagined the apologies leaving her lips and she imagined him forgiving her, because she hadn’t actually left in the end. He’d say that he loved her.
She shook the thought out of her head. She couldn’t do that. She loved him too much to go back. He deserved to be safe, and warm, and alive, and he might not be any of those things if he were here with her. He might not be any of those things if she didn’t go. She hardened her heart against his pain as best she could.
Safe. Warm. Alive. Lightning crackled above again and she felt raindrops on her hood.
Safe. Warm. Alive. That was all that mattered. She could live with the rest.