CHAINED FLOWERS ( z. dragneel )

10 | "the boy, cursed"

10
{ the boy, cursed. }

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' h e
w h o
r e m e m b e r s '

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HE KISSED HER. Tender and loving. Gently and it was as if the planets aligned and supernovae scattered on their cheeks.

The cosmic collision was on another level, so otherwordly, so beautiful and yet so simple.

Everything is a contradiction now and Esen swims in it, savors every moment. She's learned to forgive herself, the curse has ended- and she will spend the rest of this eternity by his side.

They were both chained flowers. beautiful, so beautiful that it did not require the world to tell it what to do. Just existing and beautiful and chained. Chained to cycles they couldn't escape, chained to feelings they couldn't erase, chained to that life of loneliness and with this they've shattered it.

He interlaces his fingers with hers, warmth escaping from those hands that were once as cold as snow. Beautiful, but cold. Not anymore.

"Are you cold?" he asks her. They're lying on the grass now, his back on a dying tree trunk and her quietly propped between his legs, her own back on his.

She shakes her head. "It is forever warm when I am with you."

A small smile plays on his lips as he brushes a lock of her hair from his face. "Do you ever think you should give up in this world?" he asks, eyes lonely. "Do you ever think that going on day by day in this cruel world is worth it?"

She holds his hands together, clasp them between hers. "Do you think that?" she asks, with a sad smile.

He unlatches his dominant hand, thumb brushing the edges of her pink almost white lips. "Not anymore," he says. "Since you're here and when you really look at it." He pulls her closer until their foreheads are connected. warm. "It has its beauty."

"Like what?" Esen asks. She knows how nonsensical the question is but she's reveling in everything in this moment between the both of them. She wants to slow down this moment, preserve it forever and hold it tightly in her arms. Forever cradling it and basking in its warmth.

"Like you..."

"I'm beautiful?" Esen used to think it was impossible for her to blush, having been wandering this world for years and experiencing all kinds of shame, but this particular happenstance begged to differ.

Esen knows she's beautiful, but she's never really heard someone telling her that she has decent looks. At least not in words.

"Yes, you are," he says. "But I didn't love you because you're beautiful. It's because I love you that you are beautiful."

"Thank you," she says with a curt smile, leaning on to him, feeling the erratic heartbeats on his chest. "You're not hideous yourself."

A smile tugs at his lips and Esen notes that he's been smiling a lot now. He seemed unafraid. Impervious to loneliness and Esen doesn't know what to make out of it. Is it because of her? She can't help but feel a flush of pride at the thought.

Zeref rests his head back on the tree trunk and she looks at his entire figure, wondering how everything around them seemed so simple.

"Are you tired?" she asks, watches him watch the clouds that drift overhead them. "We can sleep now, if you like."

"No..." he murmurs, his hands tracing swirling galaxies in her ragged palms. "I'm just happy. Delighted. And it's all coming to me so suddenly. that... that—" Tears rush from his face and Esen watches with a worried look.