static motion [atlas/aedan blitz]

A steel gaze comes with the pressure of being unforgiving.

When the estranged Asha Lumiere succumbed to a madness unseen by anything but a Capitol spotlight and turned a rise to glory into a descent into obscurity there were some people who never wanted the Lumiere name to be waves like a high flag ever again unless it was in the colors of surrender. I don't think I could ever pinpoint what exactly Aedan's stance on the matter was, but without question she never would've wanted me to raise the Lumiere name on my shoulders in addition to the weight of the world.

(neither did I)

And now I think I'm drowning, drowning while drawing breath on nothing but borrowed time and stolen oxygen. Aedan knew I had more to give than a first name to symbolize strength and a surname bathed in elitism because I was never Atlas Lumiere to her- I was always just Atlas.

”So what flowers do you want on your grave then?”

Her lack of optimism and faith doesn't tear the gorge I once assumed it would've, I've been devoid of it since the morning riptides. I want to tell her white ones or yellow ones or purple ones but instead I reply the only way I know how. "I've never been one for flowers, never really my thing."

The next sentence falls heavier than tar, despite my weak smile to keep it light.

"You don't look the least bit happy to see me, something wrong?"

Like the final destination of a bullet from a loaded gun, I'm already anticipating the answer before she can even speak it- everything.

When morning riptides signify a noose held by a self-signed death sentence it tends to be a catalyst for the disruption of the equilibrium of those left behind.

It should be so easy to tell her that I will have this, to tell her that it will all be-

Her hand is like a whip against my cheek, the crack echoing throughout the room.

(-okay)

But there are too many variables and possibilities, too much probability to stake my life on the fact that everything will fall into place in the midst of chaos.

My head whips to the side and thrashes and it's pure instinct to press my hand to my cheek as if pressure can fix the implications behind the slap. This isn't her laughing at some gaudy a joke or entrance before playfully hitting my cheek as to push me away, there is no possibility of me to simply laugh it off and on about her day.

She's hurt and it's all my fault.

(but grief should be the least of my concerns)

”Something wrong? Wow well, I don’t know? My brother has just voluntarily killed himself.” And I swear I hear a chuckle in her words but a worrying lack of amusement behind them. If I ever had to say goodbye to falling into bed after a hard days of training, to the sunlight breaking through the curtains of my manor to wake me up, to Aedan, to Annika, to mother and mother this is not how I imagined it.

We always saw each other eye to eye. We convinced each other that even in this illusion of royalty, kings and crowns that we were something other than the genes that made the color of our hair and the seven letter word written in cursive after our first names.

"I have to do this Aedan, you know I have to and you know why I have to." Because she knows the Atlas behind this mask of magnificence that would never let in even an inch of sunlight, she knows the secrets and the insecurities and these need for static flood; the women who's names I don't remember, the liquor, the late nights but she still never looked at me any different.

And she knows what Mother and Father expect of me, the way they look at me as if I hold the tools to mend a family name tainted by madness.

"And you know that I can't keep running anymore."