Pronounced 'toska': At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia. At the lowest level it grades into boredom.
OR: "a state of agony and torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery."
So, I'm afraid I may be quitting the fandom for a while. I'm running low on inspiration, unfortunately. As you will soon see, this one is cliché beyond reason. But someone asked me why I stopped writing. This is why. My writing has gone horribly wrong over the last few months. But, I warned you.
Spoilers: Beautiful Creatures, Beautiful Darkness
Disclaimer: Not my characters
She was never a fan of storms. The rain and wind howling through the trees kept her awake; the thunder shook her soul. The lightning surged behind her closed eyes. All the chaos, the damage, for a small amount of rain. All the fear and anxiety, for a barely measurable relief. She didn't hate them, though, as some did. She understood the necessity of such turbulent events. She knew precisely why they occurred; be it from a difference of heat or a child's fear. And so she tolerated them, and when they came, she Traveled to a more pleasant climate.
Ironically, someone described the two of them as a storm. In the man's thought, Leah was the wind, invisible and deadly. Macon was the rain, steady and withering.
She allowed herself to muse the idea. In her mind, the man was wrong. He was focusing on the wrong elements. The two of them were too close, too connected for that.
Clichés aside, she considered herself lightning and her brother thunder. For a half witted thought, it made sense. She was brilliant and sharp. He was distant and fading. Together, as a team, their broken selves almost made sense.
She could catch an eye in a crowd, especially Macon's. Their gazes would lock and they would find time to talk. It wasn't perfect by any means. Most times she recovered from the recoil of Traveling only to search a group of Casters for a man who never existed in the room. Or black would meet black, and he would disappear in a turn of his coat. Other times were confined to short simple sentences, when company might overhear. How is she? He knew she referred to Sarafine. Fine. She knew his response reflected the likeliness of Sarafine breaking Ravenwood's Binds. Others would assume 'she' meant Lena. Or Delphine. Of one of their numerous nieces. Others assumed far too much, in a time where a wayward breath caused turmoil.
She supposed that was part of the appeal, though. To swap a few words and convey a sentence that provoked a message different than your intent. It made everything safer. It gave them something to laugh about later; the predictability associated with Mortals didn't stop with them, unfortunately.
He was dying. Leah knew that better than the man himself. Which was her reasoning for labeling him as thunder. He invoked fear into whoever he wanted, and though his tirades could last a while, he calmed before long. He was tired, she knew that. Keeping up petty arguments took energy he couldn't afford to lose. She would say that was the poetic tragedy in him, if Leah allowed herself time to contemplate. He was still young, but he was worn thin enough he didn't take care of himself. He had nearly a hundred years to live, and he was preparing for his demise, hurling himself head first towards exhaustion.
She had asked him, in a moment of hysteria. "Are you afraid, Macon?" His eyes had found hers. "Lena asked earlier." The slipped easily. Lena was concerned. Not her. Lena.
"How did you answer?" His response was enthusiastically detached.
Leah had snorted from her spot in the chair opposite him, her hands loose on her knees. Her thoughts were a mess of gorgeous chaos, and if Macon had the energy, he would have seen it in her eyes. "You're terrified of losing her." Macon nodded once. "It isn't a lie, Macon."
"It isn't a truth, either, Leah." His fingers tightened as another ache spasmed. "Grace," he had replied, his voice trembling slightly, "the undoing of everything we've done to ourselves." He paused. "These last few days have had that, certainly. I expect the next year to, as well."
Leah didn't speak after that. There was something undeniably wrong with the statement, a distinct pull in her chest, a lull of her thoughts. She couldn't comprehend how he kept his head when she was losing hers. How he was collected in the face of a storm that threatened his life, smirked at its bracing winds and piercing cold that gripped his form.
When she would buckle he would build himself up. And when it came down to it, she supposed he built himself from the attacks placed on him. Where she withered at the obstacles thrown at her, he moved forward, constantly pushing himself further and further until his mind and body collapsed. When that happened he didn't slow, but forced himself to build advances and live with less. When she fell she burned, she crashed and, with bleeding hands, attempted to piece herself together again. He fortified himself from shattering, in light of the damage he faced. She let herself break.
She would crack and Macon found himself stuck in the crosshairs more than once. She would storm his office in a moment of anger and fear. She would rant about petty things, and he would set aside whatever he was working on to listen to her. And when she tore herself down to fearless sobs, where she was beyond the point of putting herself back together, he would, expertly. Somehow their roles reversed.
Leah knew it should have been the other way. She should be helping a breaking, trembling Macon. She had her life ahead of her and she still found ways to crack. He had a few years, and he didn't mind. It confounded her. Honestly, she knew Macon wasn't the kind to fall apart easily. He kept his façade brilliantly, and she wondered if he knew where the masks ended.
She supposed that's why she patched him up every time he injured himself. Why she kept coming back to help him with the stupidest of things and why she shied away that night in February. Because she was supposed to he fixing him, not the other way around. Because she would always remember him as the clear faced brother who sorted her problems, not the weakened man, wet from raindrops for the first time. She would watch as he slowly faded.
She would watch as he caught himself. Pretend not to see the way he gripped the back of a chair when standing, as though it was the only thing keeping him up. She would ignore the trembling of his hands, or the quiver in his letters. She thought of his whole deterioration as the fading of calamity.
She envied him for that. The constant, inevitable end he was racing toward. She was jealous of the idea, the thought of having an end. Her life spanned forward more than a hundred years. Long passed the death of Macon and the end of this storm. She was jealous, because he didn't run.
Because when she was threatened she ran. She fled to another place, killed a few people and moved on. She didn't allow herself time to think any more deeply into things. Because she knew what happened to Macon. She knew his thoughts tormented him enough to cause him insomnia, enough to drive him to near insanity. Which is why she attributed herself to lightning, chasing the skies in a frantic dance.
And maybe that was why she ran. Just as thunder came soon after lightning, Macon was soon behind Leah in times of trouble. She didn't stop running until a month after, when she understood Macon wouldn't, couldn't, come chasing after her. When she understood her thunder had finally died, and no amount of turmoil would bring him back.
Macon understood where his life was headed. He didn't fight it. But she struggled with the concept she would eventually have to face it as well, when she was in her prime with a future ahead of her. Somehow he, with nothing left, was more calm than she who had everything to look forward to. Somehow the dimming thunder had accepted its martyred fate and the brilliant lightning clasped hysterically to life. Somehow, in the chaos and destruction, they found solace. Somehow, between the yelling and tears, they found themselves in each other's arms, one falling apart in an array of fury, and the other slowly fading into shadow.
That's it. I'm writing Lestrade from now on.