Excerpt from my 4th book

Hey guys! I had a cool scene I've been wanting to write for a while now. So, I wrote it and I really wanted to share it all with you to see what you all think of it. So, here goes!

“Why’d you come over?” Valin asked her. He was sitting in his armchair reading the Prophecies of the End one last time by the roaring fire in his hearth. He was wearing all black clothing; a stark contrast to her light blue dress with forest green vines intwined in the cloth and the shining silver jewelry on her wrist and thin neck. One last attempt to look good in front of him, one last pitiful attempt to make him look at her like anyone else would, should, look at her.

“I was just worried about you is all,” she said sheepishly, looking at the ground and crossing her arms. She could hear the tone in his voice, he knew. How angry he was, how… done… he was. Finished. Everything he had been to these last forty or so years had led him to this. Everything he touched turned to ash in his hands. And here she was, standing in the door of his living room looking as beautiful as ever. If only Valin still had eyes to see.

“Worried about me,” he said with a small laugh. He causally threw the book into the fire of his hearth and stood up. He raised a hand, thinking about snuffing the flames out and taking in their beautiful, destructive heat. His hand outstretched, a finger raised as he looked at the fire and tilted his head. No, that’s alright. Let them burn. They aren’t hurting anyone right now. No point in putting them out anyways.

“You’re so worried about me you walked all this way to come see me,” he said quietly, still looking at the flames. Then he looked to her. And those sparkly green eyes of hers so filled with worry. “Yet when I asked you for help all those months ago, you turned your back. I begged you for help, literally on my knees, and yet you were silent. And now here we are.”

“Valin, I…” she began, tears filling her eyes. He was so sick of her tears.

“Shhh,” he said, putting a finger to his lips and taking a small step towards her. “I don’t want to hear it anymore.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” she tried to explain once again.

“I said I don’t care, Zara,” he said a little bit louder, taking another step towards her. “All I hear is you fucking up my life and then apologizing for it. Well now it’s time you listen to me.”

“Please let me explain! I…”

“For once in your life FUCKING LISTEN TO ME!” he shouted. Anything to drown out the miserable sound of her voice. God, how annoyed he was at her tears. Always fucking up, then crying while apologizing. He was so sick of the viscous cycle.

“You never LISTEN TO ME!” he shouted some more. She was shaking now, afraid of him. As she should be.

You forget what they call me, he remembered telling Rhygar.

Valin calmed himself down until he couldn’t feel the unbridled fury any longer. Or, at the very least, reigned it in on the very short chain-link leash that he kept him on.

“I’m sorry,” he said hollowly. “I’m frightening, I know. For the longest time, I tried not to be, but that’s just how things are now, I suppose. Speaking off…

He took another step towards her, her back stiff and her arms crossed, tears streaming down her face. Her eyes switched colors so fast they were almost disorienting. Those beautiful eyes.

“All these voices,” he began, gesturing with his hand to mimic mouths flapping. “All these voices telling me to just end it all. Hurry up and kill myself and the world with it. And this entire time I’ve been fighting them. I kept telling myself that I wasn’t the monster everyone thought I was, that I wasn’t the villain in the stories they would tell their children at night. And every day you would comfort me, hold me in your soft yet strong arms,” he brushed her slightly hairy forearms with the tips of his fingers. “Whispering beautiful lies into my ear. I wish I could go back to those days and hold time still, if only for a while. I didn’t realize how good I had it then, and I suspect neither did you. We didn’t know what we had signed up for,” he laughed quietly again.

“Valin…” she barely whispered.

“Shhhhhut up,” he said, putting a thumb on her lips. “Just shut up,” he said just as quietly. “I need you to listen. Can you do that for me, my love?”

She nodded, more tears staining her beautiful face. How he wanted to burn her tears away. He tilted his head, realizing that nothing was stopping him from doing so. He put his fingers on her face and watched tiny flames go up her cheeks, turning the tears in her eyes to steam. Her eyes opened wide in fright, her face quivering. She knew she could die here. But not yet. It wasn’t her time.

“I wish things could go back to the way things were, but they can’t,” he continued. “I wish I could stop time and go back to when it was just the two of us, out in that forest together, just trying to survive. I know now it wasn’t the best, but that’s not our fault. We were happy, and people didn’t like that, did they? No, they had other plans for us, expectations that we didn’t know about, nor did we care. It was bliss.

“I wish you could love me like you used to,” he told her the cold, honest truth. “And I wish I wasn’t in so much pain anymore, but…” he shrugged. “Here’s to the new us, I guess.

“I really do wish you could love me like you used to,” he repeated, running his middle finger down her throat. “Why don’t you love me, Zara?” he asked her, his face inching ever closer to hers, their lips almost touching. There were unwanted tears in his eyes now; he burned them away. “Can I make you love me?” he asked her, his hand wrapping around her throat.

“Valin, please,” she shook more tears escaping from her beautiful eyes. Eyes like the sky that he could soar through, or deep like the jungle that he had gotten lost in countless happy times before. He burned those tears too.

“How do I make you love me, Zara?” he asked her slightly louder, his hands tightening around her neck. He shook her. “Why. Don’t. You. Love. Me. Anymore.”

It wasn’t a question. He knew he wasn’t asking her. Every time he had asked her before, she had just said that she didn’t have anything to say to him. He wanted answers from her, demanded them, but now… he didn’t want them anymore. They didn’t matter to him anymore. If he didn’t matter to her, then so be it.

“I tried so hard,” he continued, his hands gripping her neck. Not enough to make her stop breathing, but just enough to let her know how angry and mad he truly was. “I tried to be the person you wanted, but I couldn’t. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a complete and utter failure of if I’m just the way that God made me, but I don’t fucking care anymore! I just want the pain to stop.”

He squeezed her one more time and then let go of her. She collapsed to her knees, her hands instinctively going to her throat that he intentionally did not crush even though every voice in his head told him to do so.

“Once upon a time, I loved you. But like all the great novels, it came to an end,” he knelt down on the ground beside her. He looked over his shoulder and nodded with his head. The fire in the hearth jumped out and burned the wood floor of his house, slowly spreading. “Everyone keeps telling me to kill myself, to end it all. Burn the whole thing down and destroy the world. They think I’m the villain and I’m tired of trying to prove them wrong.”

He took one hand, with all the love and care he could muster and put it on her soft cheek, then kissed her forehead. He gazed into those oceans and jungles one last time, his hand gathering a single tear drop.

“I’m sorry, my love. But Valin has finally been laid to rest.”

He stood up and left. The fire in his living room spread. He didn’t look back to check if Zara left the house. The door to his house and living room remained open. He didn’t need to shut them anymore. His eyes naturally drifted upwards to the full moon miles and miles above him. That beautiful full moon so full in the night sky that kept him company on all those lonely nights, nights such as this one. Let the full moon bear witness one last time to his loneliness and sorrow.

He raised his hand that carried the droplet and floated the moisture upwards, letting Zara’s tears be forever frozen in the moonlight.

He left.