Nicole W. Lee, From "Even The Dust"

Nicole W. Lee, from "Even the Dust"

@thesingingvalkyrie

Imam Al-Ghazali // Tennessee Williams

anything but just "I love you"

I want to love you.

I think I can love you?

Let me love you.

I loved you.

I would love you.

I can try to love you.

I used to know how to love you (I don't anymore)

I still love you.

Do you love me?

Can you try to love me?

I can't stop loving you.

Let me try to love you.

I think I can love you.

I think I can try (to love you).

Do you still love me?

Did you ever love me?

I don't think I could ever love you.

Don't let me love you.

I gave up (loving you).

You made me love you.

I've always loved you (but I can't anymore).

Tamlin turned, visibly working to soften his expression before he spoke. He didn’t hate his title. He didn’t hate the long hours or the sacrifices he’d made. He certainly loved his people. Yet, over the last several years he had realized that he could not carry the entire kingdom on his own two shoulders. Being alone was his time of sanctuary. Having Briar see him without the stone walls which so carefully guarded his heart from the public was uncomfortable — almost unbearable. 

Yet, he struggled to move away when her soft hand rested on his arm. It wasn’t much, a simple request for attention, but it reminded him once again of just how much it ached to be alone. 

He still had Lucien, but Lucien was a mated male now and a married one. Although his fox was continually loyal and still often there on the occasion that his panic overwhelmed his sobriety, Tamlin knew that things would never be the same. 

He had Feyre, on the edge of his defenses, sitting just beyond the portcullis of his heart. There were many long, lonely nights where he nearly ended up back at her door before his common sense stepped over his bleeding heart. That would never be the same ever.

Spring would never be the same.

He would never be the same.

For the briefest of moments, his small joys of a child’s laughter and the great outdoors had been witnessed by a stranger and it hurt. 

Tamlin swallowed and stepped back, noticing, that she still had his cloak. He didn’t have the heart to ask for it back. Especially, when he could conjure another on a moment’s notice. 

“What you saw,” He said slowly. “In the garden…was not meant for your eyes. It was meant for no one but myself and that little boy.”

He spoke in a measured, tenor beat. “I have never been one formalities. I do not mind you calling me by my name. That is…its purpose. However, I cannot abide with any form of yelling as a form of communication.”

Tamlin sighed and looked up, honestly meeting her eyes, as himself, for the first time. “Please believe me that I understand your passion and I feel it. I have gone to the end of the earth for the fem— people I have loved. That little boy you saw being one of many.” 

He ran his fingers through his blonde hair. “I have a plan for Caiden, but it is not something I can accomplish alone, or overnight. Given the late hour of the day, I need to speak to my sentries and my emissary before anything happens further.”

“Will you meet me tomorrow?” He asked, eyebrows piquing upward. He was not just Tamlin. He was not just the High Lord of Spring. He was both. There were parts of him kept hidden away. He only hoped she was willing to listen. “After court. Before noon.”

Stone Walls & Sacrifice | Tamlin & Briar @springcourthighlady

Tamlin was more than ready to leave by the time he finished listening to Briar’s rant. He let her finish — he wasn’t that impolite. His brisk footsteps echoed across the marble flooring and he looked over his shoulder, hoping that he was not followed. 

Yet, he was not that lucky. The prospects of desert with Lucien and Elain were slipping further away by the minute. Tamlin stilled when she called his name, pressing his lips into a thin line. Why won’t she go home? This is life, in Spring, right now. We’re all worried. We’re all frustrated. We all have family in need of aid. No one gets special privileges. Not even me — 

He didn’t even have privacy anymore, or space to think. Though, when he glanced over his shoulder, he was relieved to find some regret in her eyes. 

Only his friends called him by his first name. He wasn’t big on enforcing rank, but found it odd how casually she addressed him. 

He pressed his tongue into the edge of his teeth, forbidding the quick retort which danced on the edge of his lips. I will not lose it. I cannot. They cannot see me as a beast. 

He turned, stuffing his hands deeply into the pockets of his jacket, to hide how they’d tensed into fists. Running from his problems wasn’t effective, but neither was forcing himself into a corner until he lost his temper. 

Tamlin saw her hand reach for him. He wanted to back away. It had been over two years since a woman had touched him, apart from Calanmai. He flinched, but did not move. He wasn’t sure he could. 

She cares for me? I have met this female once. 

Tamlin swallowed, gravely still. “I understand your attachment, Lady Briar. Yet, if you cannot trust me as High Lord of Spring, no plan I create to bring Caiden home will be enough for you.”

He stepped away, lowering his green eyes to the ground. “If you’ll excuse me, it has been a long day.” 

@thesingingvalkyrie