Bereftshipping (Mana/Set)
. . .
"Is it heavy?" she whispers.
The way his fingers twitch towards the upside down pyramid without touching it, the way his shoulders slump a bit out of the tall, straight stance he's been in all day, tells her the truth, even if he won't say it out loud. His blue eyes are dull, cloudy, as he looks at her.
"Is yours?" he asks.
She fingers the prongs that dangle off of the ring around her neck. It is. It's heavier than she could have ever imagined when she saw it around her teacher's neck. It's not heavy in the way that gold should be—in fact, in that regard, it's incredibly light. Barely more than air.
No. It's heavy in other ways. It's heavy in that she can't go a second without feeling the cord tugging at the back of her neck, even if she's busy doing something else. The feeling of it bumping against her chest is always just as shuddering as the first time she felt it bouncing there. She's stopped running as much as she used to, so she doesn't have to feel it. It's in the cold that seeps from it through to her chest no matter how thick of a scarf she puts between it and her tunic. It's in the shadowy memories that surface to her head that aren't hers and aren't her master's but someone else's entirely, someone that she doesn't like, someone that she's afraid of.
It's in the memories that the person who used to wear it is gone. It's heavy with the knowledge that she's not supposed to be wearing it. Not yet, anyway. It shouldn't have turned out like this.
She thinks he probably feels the same way about his.
"Yes," she says to him.
He's the king. The pharaoh. The god on earth who never wanted it to be like this. She can see it in his eyes. He doesn't want to belong up there on that throne. He never wanted that, not even in his darkest days. He never looked at the throne with desire, not even in the depths of his most ambitious dreams.
And he's grown, quite a bit, since those days. That makes everything drag a little heavier, she's sure.
She's not supposed to touch him. He's the pharaoh after all. It never stopped her before, with the one before him, but maybe he's not quite the same.
She reaches for his hand anyway, pulls it from where it dangles limply at his side, and presses it to the side of her face. She wants to feel someone, something, touching her again. Her only friends in the world are gone. She's alone. Does he feel the same way?
The way his shoulders crumple at the gesture is unbecoming for a god-king. But they are alone. There is no one to see them but her. And she will not, will never, fault him for the weakness that she shares.
He crumples into her, his arms wrapping around her. It's been months. He hasn't cried once. She has. Only where no one else can see, tucked into vases in high alcoves so no one can check on her.
He's crying now. She can feel it, soaking into her shoulder, and she digs her fingers into the back of his robes and presses her face into his chest and just breathes in the deep, deep scent of him. He's still here. They were never really friends. Not before this. Not before they became one of the only ones left.
"I can't do this," he whispers. It's the human part of him, not the god. She's always liked the human part better. "Mana. I can't do this,"
She squeezes her fingers into her tunic and buries herself deeper into him—he is warm, and he is alive, and he is all that is grounding her to the floor, to reality, right now.
"I can't either," she said.
Their necklaces are so, so, so heavy.
She swallows as she presses her face against his neck and he buries his into her hair, his hands squeezing around her back, as though he's trying to grasp some part of her that will make them both able to stand again.
"So...is it okay...if I hold your hand for a while?" she mumbles.
She hears him choke softly on a sob.
"Yes," he says.
She slides her hand down his back to his side and his moves too until their fingers intertwine. It doesn't make anything any less heavy.
But the bonds between the ones who survived are ones that don't break easily.
. . .
A/N: ngl I have shipped this for fucking ages and I've never made much mention of it lol. Next is Beehiveshipping (Mai x Rebecca).
