DracoAstoria-Mask
Maybe it was arranged but sometimes it feels almost real, and that's all you could ask for.
He's perfect and his ice to your flame is a 'perfect match' (even if it doesn't make you feel a n y t h i n g). You're just floating on the surface, while everyone is watching you fly.
If only he'd let you in. You want so desperately to feel something, but he's shut you out, so you see nothing but the greygrey eyes & icy stare & ohsobeautiful
perfection (absolutely nothing, in other words).
You both have masks, perfect ice and unbreakable hatred and maybe you hate him because sometimes, after seventeen bloody years of being the perfect princess, it's time to stop pretending to love.
He never cared for you. It was always for your sister, who was never as pretty or smart or as perfect as you, but she was a mess & still broken, so maybe the tiny bit of chivalry he once had still exists (or maybe he just wants something real).
In the end, your mask is the only thing keeping you from falling when he comes home at 1:00 in the morning smelling like your sister and you just want to scream at him, but you don't because your mask just won't hold up for that long. The whole night you lay awake, crying like you could never do in front of him, because your life was meant to be a perfect fairytale and it's gone so horribly wrong.
The only thing you can do is start running as soon as the sun dawns, before the rest of the world wakes up, so (for once) you're entirely alone.
The first time you don't even care where you're going, you just have to get out and get out fast, because no one wants to see Astoria Greengrass blow, so you just run and run until you can't breathe for the stitch and can't see for the tears and no one can see you break down.
There you sit on the grass and cry for a while, until all the hurt has worked it has way out and you can think straight, and then you go back.
Walking back gives you enough time to smooth over your mask and maybe even smile, so when you see him you don't start screaming.
Somehow, you find this place again, and you cast a charm so you'll never forget where it is and you go there so often that eventually he doesn't even ask where you are, just accepts that you're gone and waits patiently for you to come back.
Maybe you're not happy but he is and you hate yourself for being glad about that but you can't help it. You can hate him all you want but when he smiles you can't breathe and when he laughs you commit it to memory and when he comes back at 1:00 in the morning you can only feel grateful that he returned and tonight isn't the night he leaves you forever.
Somehow you keep going, keep running and keep smiling, and hell, it doesn't get any easier but maybe one day it will, and that's all you could hope for.
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