WARNING: Contains slight portrayals of self-harm. Please do not read if you are uncomfortable with it.
Author's Note: A bit of depression because I wasn't feeling very well earlier in the week. The next one I post will be happier. I promise :)
On the outside, she was every bit the composed and enigmatic soldier she was known to be and praised for.
But on the inside, she was slowly crumbling into soft powder to be blown to the wind, never to be whole again.
On the outside, her face would betray no stray slips of emotion, hard as stone, and even more difficult to crack with eloquent words.
But on the inside, behind her impeccable mask, her brain was deteriorating into a black hole, sucking any shred of confidence she had left in that once-brilliant palace she used to call her conscience.
On the outside, her eyes continued to sparkle and gleam with every exhilarating conquest outside the Walls. No one bothered to realize that her dark orbs had only beamed from the invigoration, and slight competition, that ensued when he had been in her presence, and never questioned why she suddenly developed a persistent blinking problem in the past month.
But on the inside, she cried herself to sleep every night, wondering how she had let it get this far, and knowing she wouldn't be able to recover, even with the passing days. Every time she closed her door, agony managed to steal through the shrinking crack, mocking her inability to salvage her dignity and move on, and she offered no resistance.
On the outside, her arms and legs moved through orders and commands as if they still knew the purpose behind them, automatically obeying anything the Commander murmured in her direction. Sometimes they would unconsciously advance through an ingrained procedure, performing a delicate set of motions that could only be described as caressing by any onlooker. No one would be in front of her.
But on the inside, her usual tense and quick muscles were sluggish and heavy, all energy drained from the cells. And she felt limp from the massive weight beating down on her shoulders that only lifted when she dreamt of him and his cynical voice, sneering at her tragic love, but never denying it.
On the outside, her voice never wavered. It was still the same strong and heartening delivery she'd had for the past nine years, inflections always hinting at something more than encouragement. Ever since she'd known him.
But on the inside, the quivering mass of tissue that was now her heart struggled to barely continue its futile efforts, forcing life's wine through her constricted veins and refusing to surrender its weak hold over her lifeless body. She had no one to give it to now anyway.
On the outside, the thick fabric of her clothes protected her from the prying eyes of teammates, and she rejoiced in that at least she was still delegated privacy.
But on the inside, her skin bore the faint scars of tiny cuts, each a marker of a day since he was ripped from her reach, and she knew each of them by heart, could discern what time, where, how; the first few were deeper, less controlled and orderly, than those following. And if she ran a finger over the raised flesh, she could still feel the bite of the metal of his knife gently dissecting her. She had to lock herself in his closet for five hours before she forced her conscience to let her quit.
On the outside, she could sometimes feel a ghostly touch stroking a finger through her hair, sending small tremors through her body that tormented her soul and left her yearning for more. It would end almost at the small of her back, that sacred place his sinewy hand would always linger when he affirmed his usually non-expressive passion for her, and she grieved over the loss of his fiery intensity.
But on the inside, her chest churned with a strange coolness, feeling empty and frigid from her depression. But it also simmered and convulsed with a heat so sultry she sensed it, wanted it, needed it to consume her, pulling her down into a blissful hell. And she wondered if he would be there, waiting, once she escaped this purgatory.
Because once they finally met again, they would disintegrate into the blue and white-hot wings she always knew they invisibly possessed, free from any earthly cares and troubles, free to love openly. And it would be the most glorious reunion to happen since man rediscovered the ocean.
But for now, she sewed.
She sewed her aching muscles back into the agile things they once were. She sewed her shattered mind back into the clever intellect he hated admitting he admired. She sewed her cracked skin. She sewed her heart.
Because once they finally met again, she wouldn't be able to bear him seeing her like this, a carved husk of the person she used to be.
Because she knew he would rather see her stitched and sutured, scars flaunted proudly with her head held high enough he couldn't kiss her lips, than a dried out and destroyed shell that hid behind her anguish, so heavy it had absorbed the rest of her lonely days.
Because he would rather see a fighter than a prisoner.