White flashed in his glowing orbs, showing his fear of this, before they returned to the dull blue.
He turned his head back down to her when she stroked up his face. “It’s okay. You can eat me.”
What else could she say? All she could do was ease his guilt if it happened.
“But I don’t want you to die.” She could hear the pain and sadness in his voice like a deep bottomless well, one that never ended. He tilted forward and pressed the length of his face against the side of her own. “You said you would stay with me, Reia.” He shuddered against her, his arms moving around her to hold her closer. “I don’t want you to leave me.”
Tears began to well in her eyes, pooling to the point she could barely see through the murkiness of them.
“Y-you can get another human,” she told him, wrapping her arms around him so she could dig her fingers into his back.
“But I don’t want anyone else,” he whined as shook his head against her. “They will not be you. They will not be brave and strong like you. They will not have the sun in their hair, or the forest in their eyes, or the snow in their skin. They will not smell of your scent or have your voice.”
Oh God, what will happen to him when I die? If he didn’t want another human, did that mean Orpheus would be alone, missing her? Wanting no one because they wouldn’t be her?
Although she very much wasn’t fond of the pain she was in right now, Reia wasn’t afraid to die.
“You are precious to me.”
“Oh, boo hoo,” Jabez said, going up the steps and sitting on his throne to watch them while placing his cheek against his fist. “Come on, Mavka. Show me if your kind can cry. This is very entertaining for me.”
To have Orpheus’ pain mocked hurt her heart further.
“You weren’t even this sad when Katerina told you you were nothing but a worthless monster.”
Reia dug her fingers into him harder even though that tensed her back and made the piercing ache worsen. He chose me over her. Even when told lies about Reia and being told Katerina wanted him back, Orpheus had chosen to find Reia instead. He trusted in me.
“You gave me something no one else has wanted to give me, and I don’t want it from anyone but you.”
“And what is that?” she sobbed, her heart breaking further for him. Her tears finally fell, dripping from the corners of her eyes to run over her temples and into her hair.
“Someone who wanted to be by my side.”
Why does this have to hurt so much? His words were more painful than the damn dagger in her back.
I-I don’t want him to be sad, or alone. She’d seen it already from him in the beginning and watching it slowly fade the longer she’d been with him had been beautiful to witness. To slowly watch Orpheus turn from worried and hesitant to warm and affectionate had stolen her.
So without her, someone who needed him to light the candles of his home so she could see, would he sit in the dark in that cabin alone? Crying, and whining, and yearning for Reia to come back to him?
She knew… had known for a while now that Orpheus was attached to her. That he didn’t like being without her presence even for a few short hours to get her water – not because he didn’t trust her to stay, but because he didn’t like being away from her.
I don’t know if I want to live forever. She wasn’t attached to this world, didn’t have a drive to stay in it. But I don’t want him to be sad for eternity.
She could feel him quaking. She knew he was not okay, and that he wasn’t going to be okay.
I… The emotions that swirled within told her the truth, the truth she didn’t know if she wanted, but felt anyway. I want to stay with him more than anything.
For him. Because he needed her to, because he couldn’t live peacefully without her, and Reia thought she might not be able to live without him either, if she was alive.
“Orpheus,” she whispered, feeling the strength in her body slowly leaving her.
“No, Reia,” he whimpered. “I do not want to find another human.”
She tucked her head further against him.
“How do I give you my soul?”
I can live for eternity. Only if it meant she got to be with Orpheus. If I can spend it with him, I’d be happy.
In his home, surrounded by all the things he’d made, in his smell, and his embrace, with all the touches that made her melt for him. Cooking, making ornaments and protective trinkets, and clothes, and tending to the garden. Watching him roam the yard so he could make sure she was safe and protected or stoking the fireplace to make sure she was warm as he asked if she was comfortable or needed anything.