Testing Tables and App Building

Everything she was screamed in protest to the moment that was and the one that followed. She was so different than how she arrived. The pristine and untouched princess of those highland swamps was barely a flicker of the woman she was today. The girl who was born to that unworthy King would have scoffed at this man...this creature that she chose to love. But the Nox of today could not go on loving anyone else. Every fiber of her being latched onto him until she forcefully cut them free. It felt like something sharp had been jammed into her ribcage and into her heart. The pain was so intense that she was almost convinced it was real. Never had she loved anyone so intensely as she loved him. Whether the moon liked to admit it, she needed the sun. She felt lost without his light and the stars he gifted. Nox held onto that, she held onto him, but it was time to pull away. He had been her first love and he would be her last, she would see to that. A woman always had to make the difficult choices in life but Nox was not making this decision as a woman. She was making this choice as a Queen and as a mother.

Nox could feel his citrus orbs burning into her from behind. She refused to look at him or rather she could not bring herself to. If she turned around than she might have given in to what she felt. It was now more than ever that she could not afford to succumb to her feelings. Love played her like a harp, it bent her strings to its will and played a tune of its own. What strength did not flee her body, she used to resist. It took everything from her to look away from him—to keep from turning around and taking him into her arms. She hated him and loved him all the same. The cold pierced deep into her flesh and settled there for good. She hated the way it felt but she embraced it like an old friend. It... It's for the best. Or at least that was what she tried to convince herself. Rain fell around them and created great puddles at their feet. Nox could hear his heavy, malformed steps slosh through the mud only to stop, take a few more steps, and stop again. They danced around each other almost like the first time. One step forward and two steps back except she was not moving at all. She remained completely still staring into oblivion as she was being torn apart from the inside out.

When she turned to face him, she held herself up by the sheer strength in her spirit. Where her body and heart failed, her mind succeeded. Embers sparked in her eyes, but she could not produce a flame. She had burned herself out to near completion and what remained was distorted behind a liquid barrier that threatened to fall but never did. He looked back at her like a lost child. He was such a fool, almost as much a fool as she was for thinking that they could exist together, in the same universe. Just go already. She could not muster the strength to speak those words but her broken heart screamed them. As strong of a woman as she was, Nox could not handle it anymore. He was and forever would be her weakness. By chance and a stroke of fate, like that of a brush dipped in ink violently sprawled across a piece of parchment, she had found her kryptonite. A spark of realization reflected in those eyes of his. What? What is it that you see? Nox would have given anything to know what thoughts coursed through that mind. She no longer felt as if she could read his thoughts, their link severed when he left. I thought I knew you. He never appeared to be more of a ghost than he already looked. In the storm he almost seemed to be transparent, like she could stare right through and him and into the miles upon miles of vast moorland. I realize now that I never did. How could she know him? She had met him on a smoldering summer day and somehow, she assumed that the man that she seduced into her bed was not a stranger but someone she had known all her life. A fool. Yes. She was certainly a fool.

Her eyes were fixated on him as he closed the distance. She trailed him as he hobbled closer, silently wondering how he got such an injury. The expression on his face looked as if he knew something. Could she have betrayed herself when she looked at him? Whatever it was he was coming closer and she... she did not know if she wanted him to. Nox wanted to recreate that distance to protect him—to protect herself but she could not. The truth was more complicated than the lies she fabricated to shield herself from that pain. The truth was that she did not want him to go. The odds of their love were something of impossibility, an astronomical miscalculation that should never have occurred, but it did, and she would not have changed it even if she could. When he left it felt like he had died. She grieved for him like he had, through denial, anger, and sheer agony. Do you even know what you have done to me? Have you any idea you stupid man? She watched as he began to scrape at the earth like a child doodling in the sand. Her brows furrowed in confusion and she shook her head. No, of course not. How could you? Nox felt the heat boil up and sizzle out when it touched her anguish. “What the hell are you doing?” She watched with a mixture of wariness and frustration as he clumsily doodled something into the mud. “Was I not clear?” She sighed shakily and reared her head back. “Just—” For a split moment her eyes drifted downward. That was all it took to realize that what he had been gracelessly scraping into the mud was really letters. Rain pooled into the trenches he created and revealed a message that she had missed before.

Nox stared at those three letters for what felt like ages. They were near ineligible, sloppily carved into the soil and near-covered with water but—

Oxygen remained trapped inside her lungs, barricaded behind the walls of muscle and flesh. It felt like she was suffocating—No, drowning beneath hundreds of gallons of water and then... Nox inhaled sharply as she had never taken a breath before. Nox. It was her name etched into the ground. He tried to convey a message and she heard him, but it was not the answer she expected. Amber eyes peered upward to find his face. There was clear relief in her eyes but also caution. It felt like a trick and she partly refused to believe it real. She looked down again to make sure and it was there, barely, but still there. Her eyes burned as she tried to hold back the tears dammed behind them. Nox tried to stand but after so long spent crouched on the ground, her legs clung to it. They trembled and nearly gave but somehow, she found the strength to stand. Nox took a step forward and then another until she was but a breath away. Nox pressed her temple to his throat unable to clamber any higher. If he could not see her shaking, he would have felt it. The entirety of her body shook and when she pressed into him she almost found it difficult to let go. “I—” The start of a sentence formed but remained barred behind her lips.

A soft sniffle became muffled beneath layers of wet alabaster fur. She choked back a sob and uttered three words. “I love you.” It slipped past her lips in shambles. She had not been able to say them until that moment but now seemed as good a time as any. If the storm drowned her previous words out, she spoke them again. “I love you, you idiot.” More than you know. More than you could ever know. She was not done yet. There would be no happy ending for them. He was not her prince and her, not his princess. She was a Queen and she knew what was best for her kingdom and for herself. “but I cannot forgive you.” Her tone was soft until it came to the end of her sentence. She drove those five words in deeper and sharper than any knife. If she had hands, she would have reached up to gently cup his cheek. She pulled away to look him in the eyes. “You know why, don’t you? You have to know... maybe not completely but...” Nox leaned up to gently nudge his cheek. She felt her heart lurch, not out of love, but pain. It hurt. No amount of relief he could have provided would have masked that. “You owe it to our children to make up for the time you stole from them. You owe it to me, as their mother, to give them that time. I cannot forgive you, not yet, but maybe they will. For your sake, I hope so.” She pressed her forehead to his chin for several moments until finally, she pulled away. It took everything out of her to tear herself away from him. She cast her eyes down because if she looked at him, she knew they would betray her again. While she knew he deserved everything she had done thus far, it did not take away from how horrible she felt doing it. Nox parted from him, slowly but surely cutting the string that connected them. She had to for her own sake. Nox was not ready to welcome him into her arms again...She had endured long enough and now it was his turn. She appeared to walk away but halted after a few steps. “Oh, and Azriel?” Nox emphasized on his name so that he could hear it. A silent message of her own. Something to give him hope. “If you leave me again, it will be the last time.” And with that, she was done. The urge to turn around was almost more than she could stand. Nox bit her lip and kept her eyes forward. She lifted her head up and kept going, no matter how badly she wanted to turn back.