p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"God doesn't want to talk to me either, and that's probably the reason for a lot of things./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"It's the reason that I found such companionship in you, I think. When we first met. There was a sort of surface level to it, because you're a human and have Those Feelings, and as for me, well, I'm just insanely beautiful, obviously. But then as time passed and you got to know me — or think you know me, because I am mysterious and unknowable — you became captivated with the deity of me, which ironically is the part of me that I, like humans, also understand the least./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I don't know why I let it happen. Maybe I had spent so long proclaiming that I was mysterious and unknowable that I found myself wanting at least one person to challenge it. Maybe I was so damn tired of being unknowable./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I was thinking all of this as we laid in bed together. It's your fault that I don't remember what an empty bed feels like anymore. I'm not complaining about it. I can't recall a night not spent with the weight of your body pressed somewhere against mine. There's something desperate about the way that you hold onto me, how you have to have some sort of physical link to me, whether it's as simple as holding my hand or as full and vulnerable as curling up in my arms. Often these nights were the culmination of yet another series of pleas to me and then the hurt when I inevitably didn't tell you what you wanted to hear. Not that I disappointed you, of course. I could never do that to you. And that's why I couldn't tell you what I was. Or, rather, what I wasn't./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"You blinked up at me through the curtain of your hair, loose and falling over your shoulders, shoulders that bore not only the weight of the pack that you carry all day every day but the weight of your past, of what was done to you, what you experienced and what you would do anything to be able to erase. Your eyes, storm-grey and fathomless, were filled with tears yet again. This was far from the first time I had seen them so./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"In this, you, too, were mysterious and unknowable. I alone was allowed to be the witness to this strange side of you, this boy wracked with such pain and such aching to meet the being that you were convinced I was part of./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""You won't tell me," you said, and your voice was thick with the tears that filled your eyes. "Even after— you still won't tell me."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I suppose humans consider themselves more exposed when they aren't clothed. In this, I could see why you would denote what we had just done as deserving of knowledge that I kept hidden away in our everyday life. I looked down at you, encircled in my arms as I ran my fingers through your golden hair, and you looked back up at me, waiting, hoping, longing for this to be the time when I would open myself to you the way that you wanted me to./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I ran one thumb beneath the curve of your right eye and wiped away a tear there that had been threatening to fall. I needn't have, though — more came to take its place, and you let them slip down your face one after another, because you must have known already that I wasn't going to give you the answers you craved more than anything. Still, I took pleasure in the moment. I could feel the ridge of your bone beneath the skin; I could hear the shaking breaths you were taking through your nose; I could feel the essence of you that made you you. In my arms was a human being; in my arms was Volo of the Ginkgo Guild. No one else was allowed this closeness to you but I./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"And even then I'm sure I was only allowed to see this secret side of you because of what you were convinced that I was./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I ran my hand down your face, glided it across to the curve of your neck and then to your shoulder, pressing at the muscle beneath. I said, "Jesus God. What's in that pack you carry around all the time? STONES?"/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"This non-sequitur was too much for you. Your face twisted up for just a second the way humans' do just before they're about to cry, and then you buried it in the flat, bare skin of my stomach. I could feel your arms tighten around my waist, and I could feel my skin start to become wet with your tears as you let yourself experience your emotions with wild abandon./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"For a few moments I simply continued stroking your hair as you cried into me. Those strong shoulders shook, and your fingers pressed into the skin of my hips. My refusal to answer your repeated question one way or the other was the one thing that never failed to cause you to come undone./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"From my abdomen, you said, with some difficulty, your voice breaking, "Do you span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: oblique; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"like/span hurting me, Tioga?"/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"Aghast, I immediately responded, "No! Of course not."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""Then you must enjoy seeing me like this. I can't think of another reason you would keep doing this to me."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I won't deny that there is some part of me that responds every time this sort of thing happens — but I don't think it's enjoyment of your suffering. Instead, I think it must be something more along the lines of knowing that you would never allow anyone else to see you like this. It's probably the thrill of understanding that you don't let anyone in but that I am the exception. It's less of the power I hold over you and more of the nature of the power./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"That's only part of the reason, though./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"You lifted your head just slightly — just enough so that I could see your eyes, and nothing else, which were still bright with tears that slipped down your face and caught the light like tiny crystals. "Tioga," you said./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I smiled softly down at you, tucking a length of hair behind your ear. "Yes?"/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"You were too overcome to speak in anything other than the softest and most broken of voices, now. Your emotions had been allowed to be wild and frantic for a moment, and now the grief must have been setting in, weighing on everything in you until you felt like nothing more than a shadow of a human being. "You're breaking my heart. You know that, right?"/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""Your heart," I whispered reverently in response. This was the part of you that I treasured the most, because it felt so connected to my own. It was, as far as I am aware, the thing that led me to you in the first place. There is another part of me — far, far away, in a place I don't know the name or location of, and couldn't go to even if I did — that feels the same. I experience time and space in a vastly different way from human beings; in my perspective, knowing how strong the desires of your heart are is what sent me searching for a heart like yours in the first place, which inevitably led me to you. So hearing that your heart was the part of you that I was hurting was not something that was entirely comfortable to me./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""Yes," you said. Those eyes were swallowing me. I couldn't claw my way out of them. "It's just a question. You can say 'no', but I just want you to span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: oblique; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"answer/span it. Tioga, you're killing me."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"Yet you continued to be with me. Despite the pain and suffering I was causing you, it wasn't enough to make you leave me. There was something a little bit holy about that sort of devotion. I said, quietly, "Volo."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"You murmured a response into my skin./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""Do you think I'm beautiful?"/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"You slid your face back down so that once again all I could see was the top of your head as you spoke into me. "Yes," you said./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I could feel the tears that had previously made themselves at home on your eyelashes detach themselves and make themselves a new home on the plane of my stomach. "Do you ..." I paused here, unsure what I wanted the answer to be, or how exactly to ask the question. "... love me? Do you love me, Volo?"/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""Yes," you said, miserably./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I am not a human, so I don't have human emotions, and I don't know what you're talking about quite a lot of the time when you try to share yours with me. But this one — it was unfamiliar, and that was how I knew it was human. If I'm correct, I think they call it "having Beautiflies in your stomach". Something seemed to come alive and beat its wings against the inside of my body. That I was loved — that it was span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: oblique; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"you/span who loved me — that you felt such an emotion for me./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I said, "I love you, too, Volo."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I felt the emotions even before you displayed them. They whipped themselves back up into a frenzy, all at once, and before I could even process what was happening you were kneeling over me, one hand on each side of me, glaring down at me through your curtains of blond hair. I couldn't say there was hatred brewing in those eyes. It was love, weaponized. Love for me, I suppose, but mostly love for something else. You were still crying, but they were furious tears now, each one that dropped from your eyes and landed on my collarbone a tiny burning gem of sulfur./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""You don't," you hissed at me, "or you wouldn't keep putting me through this, Tioga! You don't love me. You say you do, but this isn't how people who love each other behave. All I want to know is a simple — fucking — question — just one with a yes or no answer, and you won't even grant me the peace of mind of a 'no'. Is this fun to you? Do you — do you span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: oblique; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"enjoy/span doing this to me? No—" you said, interrupting me, "—don't. I don't want to hear you answer that question but not the other one." Some sort of emotion rose up inside you: resolve, determination. It colored everything about you in the most vibrant and familiar hues, as if you had been beside me from the moment of my creation. And then you asked the question that you had been asking ever since the two of us began this treacherous dance together./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""Are you — or are you not — a fragment of Arceus?"/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"We watched each other for a very long time. My mind, as I'm sure you expected, was far from actually formulating an answer to the question. I wondered about the implications of answering in the positive. If you would be horrified to realize that you had been having sex with God. If that would be blasphemous to you or rather a confirmation of the closeness you enjoyed with the being that was the most revered to you. What, really, would you want to hear? Would you rather me tell you no, so that your reason for living didn't come to a halt? Or would you rather I answer in the affirmative so that your tireless search for a way to right the wrongs that were done to you was finally over? Did you want to rest, finally?/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"It didn't matter how I answered, of course. Either way I was terrified you were going to leave me alone, our kindred hearts separated forever. I couldn't bear something like that, not when I had finally found someone who made my soul sing. You were an angel sent to me to change my life. I couldn't let my angel fly away. If the question remained a question forever, then you would be forced to stay with me forever in order to find out the answer./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"All of this, I could have said to you, but I knew the outcome would have been the same as answering. You would make your own conclusions. You would decide my codependence wasn't worth the pain it caused you by staying with me, and you would disappear. I could hunt you down, of course — break both your arms and legs, and then you'd have to rely on me forever — but I didn't want to force you into it. I wanted you to stay with me because of the strength of your soul that had led me to you in the first place./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""You're not going to answer me," you said from above me, "are you, Tioga?"/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I shook my head./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"You lowered yourself back down on top of me, arms wrapping around me once more, chest to chest, your head fitting into the groove of my neck, your face submerged in my wild masses of dark hair. A ray of light from the sun beginning to rise outside slipped through the front of the tent, and it lit a strip up your smooth, pale back. span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: oblique; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"Wings should be there,/span I thought as I gripped you tight, breathed in the scent of you. span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: oblique; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"They should be bursting through those beautiful shoulder blades of yours. Anything else seems a travesty./span Of course, the ray of light that lit you up conveniently avoided me./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""I'm sorry," I spoke into your hair. It seemed the least I could do in this game that we played so selfishly. "I promise I really do love you, Volo."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"You laughed, just the once, just a short, strange sound that interrupted your crying for half a second. "I know. I really do love you, too."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"We stayed like that until your breathing resolved itself into normalcy, and any fight that had been left in you had trickled slowly out. You were once again soft and vulnerable in my arms, and I loved you fiercely for everything that had happened tonight. I hope you know that no matter which side of you you're displaying, I will always come to your defense. Your heart and mine are the same. If you call my name, I will hear you no matter where you are. If someone so much as draws blood from you, I will dash them mercilessly against the rocks like the unforgiving sea. If you are trapped somewhere I can't follow, then I will rewrite the laws of reality to allow me to come collect you./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I am mysterious and unknowable, but you are the only one allowed to truly perceive me./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"As we drifted off into sleep, I heard you whisper, "Just please ... don't ever leave me, Arceus."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"So I suppose you've made your own conclusions after all./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"It's the reason that I found such companionship in you, I think. When we first met. There was a sort of surface level to it, because you're a human and have Those Feelings, and as for me, well, I'm just insanely beautiful, obviously. But then as time passed and you got to know me — or think you know me, because I am mysterious and unknowable — you became captivated with the deity of me, which ironically is the part of me that I, like humans, also understand the least./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I don't know why I let it happen. Maybe I had spent so long proclaiming that I was mysterious and unknowable that I found myself wanting at least one person to challenge it. Maybe I was so damn tired of being unknowable./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I was thinking all of this as we laid in bed together. It's your fault that I don't remember what an empty bed feels like anymore. I'm not complaining about it. I can't recall a night not spent with the weight of your body pressed somewhere against mine. There's something desperate about the way that you hold onto me, how you have to have some sort of physical link to me, whether it's as simple as holding my hand or as full and vulnerable as curling up in my arms. Often these nights were the culmination of yet another series of pleas to me and then the hurt when I inevitably didn't tell you what you wanted to hear. Not that I disappointed you, of course. I could never do that to you. And that's why I couldn't tell you what I was. Or, rather, what I wasn't./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"You blinked up at me through the curtain of your hair, loose and falling over your shoulders, shoulders that bore not only the weight of the pack that you carry all day every day but the weight of your past, of what was done to you, what you experienced and what you would do anything to be able to erase. Your eyes, storm-grey and fathomless, were filled with tears yet again. This was far from the first time I had seen them so./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"In this, you, too, were mysterious and unknowable. I alone was allowed to be the witness to this strange side of you, this boy wracked with such pain and such aching to meet the being that you were convinced I was part of./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""You won't tell me," you said, and your voice was thick with the tears that filled your eyes. "Even after— you still won't tell me."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I suppose humans consider themselves more exposed when they aren't clothed. In this, I could see why you would denote what we had just done as deserving of knowledge that I kept hidden away in our everyday life. I looked down at you, encircled in my arms as I ran my fingers through your golden hair, and you looked back up at me, waiting, hoping, longing for this to be the time when I would open myself to you the way that you wanted me to./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I ran one thumb beneath the curve of your right eye and wiped away a tear there that had been threatening to fall. I needn't have, though — more came to take its place, and you let them slip down your face one after another, because you must have known already that I wasn't going to give you the answers you craved more than anything. Still, I took pleasure in the moment. I could feel the ridge of your bone beneath the skin; I could hear the shaking breaths you were taking through your nose; I could feel the essence of you that made you you. In my arms was a human being; in my arms was Volo of the Ginkgo Guild. No one else was allowed this closeness to you but I./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"And even then I'm sure I was only allowed to see this secret side of you because of what you were convinced that I was./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I ran my hand down your face, glided it across to the curve of your neck and then to your shoulder, pressing at the muscle beneath. I said, "Jesus God. What's in that pack you carry around all the time? STONES?"/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"This non-sequitur was too much for you. Your face twisted up for just a second the way humans' do just before they're about to cry, and then you buried it in the flat, bare skin of my stomach. I could feel your arms tighten around my waist, and I could feel my skin start to become wet with your tears as you let yourself experience your emotions with wild abandon./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"For a few moments I simply continued stroking your hair as you cried into me. Those strong shoulders shook, and your fingers pressed into the skin of my hips. My refusal to answer your repeated question one way or the other was the one thing that never failed to cause you to come undone./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"From my abdomen, you said, with some difficulty, your voice breaking, "Do you span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: oblique; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"like/span hurting me, Tioga?"/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"Aghast, I immediately responded, "No! Of course not."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""Then you must enjoy seeing me like this. I can't think of another reason you would keep doing this to me."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I won't deny that there is some part of me that responds every time this sort of thing happens — but I don't think it's enjoyment of your suffering. Instead, I think it must be something more along the lines of knowing that you would never allow anyone else to see you like this. It's probably the thrill of understanding that you don't let anyone in but that I am the exception. It's less of the power I hold over you and more of the nature of the power./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"That's only part of the reason, though./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"You lifted your head just slightly — just enough so that I could see your eyes, and nothing else, which were still bright with tears that slipped down your face and caught the light like tiny crystals. "Tioga," you said./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I smiled softly down at you, tucking a length of hair behind your ear. "Yes?"/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"You were too overcome to speak in anything other than the softest and most broken of voices, now. Your emotions had been allowed to be wild and frantic for a moment, and now the grief must have been setting in, weighing on everything in you until you felt like nothing more than a shadow of a human being. "You're breaking my heart. You know that, right?"/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""Your heart," I whispered reverently in response. This was the part of you that I treasured the most, because it felt so connected to my own. It was, as far as I am aware, the thing that led me to you in the first place. There is another part of me — far, far away, in a place I don't know the name or location of, and couldn't go to even if I did — that feels the same. I experience time and space in a vastly different way from human beings; in my perspective, knowing how strong the desires of your heart are is what sent me searching for a heart like yours in the first place, which inevitably led me to you. So hearing that your heart was the part of you that I was hurting was not something that was entirely comfortable to me./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""Yes," you said. Those eyes were swallowing me. I couldn't claw my way out of them. "It's just a question. You can say 'no', but I just want you to span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: oblique; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"answer/span it. Tioga, you're killing me."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"Yet you continued to be with me. Despite the pain and suffering I was causing you, it wasn't enough to make you leave me. There was something a little bit holy about that sort of devotion. I said, quietly, "Volo."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"You murmured a response into my skin./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""Do you think I'm beautiful?"/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"You slid your face back down so that once again all I could see was the top of your head as you spoke into me. "Yes," you said./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I could feel the tears that had previously made themselves at home on your eyelashes detach themselves and make themselves a new home on the plane of my stomach. "Do you ..." I paused here, unsure what I wanted the answer to be, or how exactly to ask the question. "... love me? Do you love me, Volo?"/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""Yes," you said, miserably./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I am not a human, so I don't have human emotions, and I don't know what you're talking about quite a lot of the time when you try to share yours with me. But this one — it was unfamiliar, and that was how I knew it was human. If I'm correct, I think they call it "having Beautiflies in your stomach". Something seemed to come alive and beat its wings against the inside of my body. That I was loved — that it was span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: oblique; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"you/span who loved me — that you felt such an emotion for me./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I said, "I love you, too, Volo."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I felt the emotions even before you displayed them. They whipped themselves back up into a frenzy, all at once, and before I could even process what was happening you were kneeling over me, one hand on each side of me, glaring down at me through your curtains of blond hair. I couldn't say there was hatred brewing in those eyes. It was love, weaponized. Love for me, I suppose, but mostly love for something else. You were still crying, but they were furious tears now, each one that dropped from your eyes and landed on my collarbone a tiny burning gem of sulfur./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""You don't," you hissed at me, "or you wouldn't keep putting me through this, Tioga! You don't love me. You say you do, but this isn't how people who love each other behave. All I want to know is a simple — fucking — question — just one with a yes or no answer, and you won't even grant me the peace of mind of a 'no'. Is this fun to you? Do you — do you span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: oblique; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"enjoy/span doing this to me? No—" you said, interrupting me, "—don't. I don't want to hear you answer that question but not the other one." Some sort of emotion rose up inside you: resolve, determination. It colored everything about you in the most vibrant and familiar hues, as if you had been beside me from the moment of my creation. And then you asked the question that you had been asking ever since the two of us began this treacherous dance together./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""Are you — or are you not — a fragment of Arceus?"/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"We watched each other for a very long time. My mind, as I'm sure you expected, was far from actually formulating an answer to the question. I wondered about the implications of answering in the positive. If you would be horrified to realize that you had been having sex with God. If that would be blasphemous to you or rather a confirmation of the closeness you enjoyed with the being that was the most revered to you. What, really, would you want to hear? Would you rather me tell you no, so that your reason for living didn't come to a halt? Or would you rather I answer in the affirmative so that your tireless search for a way to right the wrongs that were done to you was finally over? Did you want to rest, finally?/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"It didn't matter how I answered, of course. Either way I was terrified you were going to leave me alone, our kindred hearts separated forever. I couldn't bear something like that, not when I had finally found someone who made my soul sing. You were an angel sent to me to change my life. I couldn't let my angel fly away. If the question remained a question forever, then you would be forced to stay with me forever in order to find out the answer./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"All of this, I could have said to you, but I knew the outcome would have been the same as answering. You would make your own conclusions. You would decide my codependence wasn't worth the pain it caused you by staying with me, and you would disappear. I could hunt you down, of course — break both your arms and legs, and then you'd have to rely on me forever — but I didn't want to force you into it. I wanted you to stay with me because of the strength of your soul that had led me to you in the first place./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""You're not going to answer me," you said from above me, "are you, Tioga?"/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I shook my head./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"You lowered yourself back down on top of me, arms wrapping around me once more, chest to chest, your head fitting into the groove of my neck, your face submerged in my wild masses of dark hair. A ray of light from the sun beginning to rise outside slipped through the front of the tent, and it lit a strip up your smooth, pale back. span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: oblique; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"Wings should be there,/span I thought as I gripped you tight, breathed in the scent of you. span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: oblique; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"They should be bursting through those beautiful shoulder blades of yours. Anything else seems a travesty./span Of course, the ray of light that lit you up conveniently avoided me./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;""I'm sorry," I spoke into your hair. It seemed the least I could do in this game that we played so selfishly. "I promise I really do love you, Volo."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"You laughed, just the once, just a short, strange sound that interrupted your crying for half a second. "I know. I really do love you, too."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"We stayed like that until your breathing resolved itself into normalcy, and any fight that had been left in you had trickled slowly out. You were once again soft and vulnerable in my arms, and I loved you fiercely for everything that had happened tonight. I hope you know that no matter which side of you you're displaying, I will always come to your defense. Your heart and mine are the same. If you call my name, I will hear you no matter where you are. If someone so much as draws blood from you, I will dash them mercilessly against the rocks like the unforgiving sea. If you are trapped somewhere I can't follow, then I will rewrite the laws of reality to allow me to come collect you./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"I am mysterious and unknowable, but you are the only one allowed to truly perceive me./p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"As we drifted off into sleep, I heard you whisper, "Just please ... don't ever leave me, Arceus."/p
p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.119999885559082px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: #2a2a2a; color: #2a2a2a;"So I suppose you've made your own conclusions after all./p