Work Text:
“I am not afraid,” she tells him through pale lips and dull teeth. The wind blows from the sea, strong and fearless, nearly knocking her down. She does not falter, because she is not afraid. She is not afraid of him. She is as strong and fearless as the wind that is moving through her hair.
(But she is afraid. She is afraid of regrets and the pain she is putting them through. She is afraid of the pain she knows that he will bring with him.)
She is not afraid of summoning, of sending, of dancing, of pyreflies or empty eyes or cracked skulls or bleeding, shattered rib cages. She is not afraid of endless fields or calloused hands on her cheeks. She is not afraid of the ocean or the birds or the mud on the ground, pooling and soaking into her boots.
(But she is afraid for them, she is afraid for him, she is afraid for it.)
Because it will come back and she knows it. And it (he) will take more and more lives with him, destruction and death following wherever he goes. She knows it like she knows that the ocean is blue, like she knows that Rikku loves the color of chocobo yellow on her nails, and how she knows that her father loved, will always love, her mother.
But he will not come forth to her unless she admits that. He will not shred her muscles, will not fracture her skull, will not break her spine her bones her spirit her skin, unless she says what she knows it true.
(Just like she knows it’s true that the sky is blue but ever changing, like she knows that seasons come and go, like she knows that pyreflies are not so beautiful after all.)
“I am afraid.”
He comes, ripping and shredding and breaking and cracking as she twirls and summons and sends and dances all at once.
“I am afraid.”
She is afraid, and he is beautifully ugly.