1. Seraphic

𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒚-𝒔𝒊𝒙. two hearts make a whole

a z r i e l

☽ ☾

Seraphina had been talking for a while and for the first time in his life, Azriel hadn't been paying attention. Not to the words, anyway. Her voice? Absolutely. But whatever it was she was saying, he had no clue.

That was when he knew her presence had truly become a curse on him, whether she'd inflicted it on him or not.

He couldn't afford to be so distracted—and yet he was thinking about her yet again. More specifically, the strange dream he had had. Why did he not remember her? Had that dream perhaps been just a dream? But if it had been, why had it felt like a memory? Like looking at photos from his childhood and remembering when it was taken.

The room fell silent then.

Azriel looked up; Seraphina was watching him.

"What?"

"Nothing. You just... became really quiet. Was it a bad suggestion?"

"No. No, of course it wasn't." Could she ever do anything wrong? "I was just... thinking about something."

"Oh," she said, nodding. "Well, I find that if there is something constantly on my mind, working through it and processing it until you understand it helps. Instead of avoiding it. Or at least it does for me."

He stared at her.

Did she ever think of him the way he thought of her? Did he plague her mind, too?

Azriel tried to shake the thoughts out of his mind but he found he could no longer do so so easily; the thoughts had become stubborn, grown a mind of their own, and they wanted to make their presence known, wanted to declare it loud and proud until every stupid part of him knew.

But knew what?

That false version of Seraphina's voice rang through his head: Oh, Azriel. I never said anything but a single letter. You have put together the word for yourself, and that can only mean one thing.

And he was terrified of that truth more than any war. A war in his home, in his kingdom, he could manage. But a war in his heart?

"Is it about this?" she asked, gentle as she always was. "I understand if this is becoming too much."

"No." He shook his head. "I am used to it by now. But I am just so tired." Tired of the war outside, of the war inside. Of himself. "I do not know how much longer I can keep doing this."

Nineteen years was a long time for anyone. But nineteen years in a war, nineteen years of hiding his true nature and forcing himself to lock his heart away to protect himself the way no-one out there ever would for him?

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

He didn't know why she had tears in her eyes, nor why she got up. But her arms wrapped around him, and he had never felt more at peace in his life.

Seraphina wrapped her arms around his head, her fingers brushing their way through his hair as she pulled him close against her; Azriel rest his head against her chest, eyes closing. The sound of her heartbeat stilled the storm within him, quietened the never-ending voices in his mind.

How did one person make him feel so calm?

The pounding in his heart that always occurred around her had gone away entirely now, replaced by nothing but feelings of peace and calmness, a stillness he had never experienced before. A serenity he hadn't known existed. The kind only ever heard of in stories.