𝚒𝚗𝚋𝚘𝚡 — 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚗𝚒𝚊.

[sacral]

EVEN WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS

Comments

[sacral]

[ A melted frost, shivering loose its preserved omen — ]

November?

[hallowedly]

As it happens.

( Let it land like a hurricane. )

A good-will gift. To complete your collection of every other tatter of my dignity you've embezzled. I don't invite reciprocation.

1/2.

[sacral]

[ The docility of his first reception pitches in the landfall. Wreckage-winged, strangled. Then left choking in the clarity that the eye affords:

Not the first of April. ]

2/2.

[sacral]

In exchange?

[hallowedly]

Stubbornness isn't capital, and surrender isn't currency.

( But there is value to this conversation. )

You don't have much. If it's freely given, you'll squander it. If it's wrenched from my hands, you'll guard it jealously. Consider me despoiled.

[sacral]

[ It flutters on the edge of the storm, unwilling to be forgotten: another year yet approaches. The house he was born in, dancing red, wet, alive, alive. ]

You want me to preserve our heritage.

[hallowedly]

( Theirs. In sickness and in health. The Murmur line can absorb the banality of a scandal. It struggles, faintly, with uncertainty. )


I want you to be a very jealous man.

[sacral]

[ Recognition trips the Murmur's alarm, even if its blaring is foggy and soft. Not even to Sleep would he — ]

And use it as a first ward.

[hallowedly]

This is an unprecedented triumph. You should celebrate it like an extinct species.

[sacral]

It used to feel like a nearer future.

I suppose you have ideas.

[hallowedly]

( A peel of rare incidental amusement. )

I don't even have exclusivity over my birth date.

[sacral]

You've bargained it away. You've —

Put it under my protection.

[ A question, flourished. ]

[hallowedly]

Was there another way to safeguard it against you?

[sacral]

[ To safeguard, to surrender, to exact selfishness... ]

...no, maybe not. I won't make another bet with you.

But I will agree to what you're asking.

[hallowedly]

I've asked nothing, but you've gained everything. Funny.

[sacral]

Then let my assumption be right.

It's Fushiguro Megumi, isn't it?

[hallowedly]

It's you. ( But. ) And it's him.

You like your tragic boys of blood and duty.

[sacral]

[ Fibrous, taut heartache. Dutifully boxed and buried. ]

He knows of the Sumeragi and the Sakurazuka. [ Bleeding honesty at the end of a garrote. ] As a measure of seeing if our practitioners aligned.

[hallowedly]

( A sudden syncopation. )


...oh. You think I'll kill him. For what you've said already. No. No, I briefly wondered. But no. Don't demean yourself.

[sacral]

I think he has your attention.

[ Be that as it may, art to art. ]

What do you want kept away from him? From anyone?

[hallowedly]

The rites.

[sacral]

There are many.

[hallowedly]

There aren't so many.

[sacral]

[ Recognition palpitates. Not so many, so few. One. ]

Your family's.

[hallowedly]

Our family's.