Rage is always loud. Always. But I learned to weather your rage quickly - I’d had years of practice even before meeting you.

It was easy, because all of your emotions were loud And I was quiet And I listened carefully for the silence between Your moods.

I could never taste the sweetness of a moment with you not when all of our nights turned sour.

And I accepted equally the crack of lightning in your joy and rage because you bore them like twins.

I could always weather the violent storm crashing around me.

But the static silence the raise of the hair on my arms and the back of my neck the signal of your shifting thoughts.

I could never endure that thundering whisper.

The chill air sat heavily in the old tunnel, thick with the smell of old bat shit, the wet miasma threatening to suffocate Ilara. Choking on air was absurd way to die, but not exactly uncommon in these lesser-known catacombs. Smuggling, as ever, had its dangers.

Perhaps worse than the smell was the darkness. The more trafficked tunnels, the safer ones, were regularly checked for air quality. Here, you couldn’t hazard a lighted match, unless you wanted to find out the hard way that you were nearing a natural gas leak.

No. Ilara followed the shuffling in front of her, just as Logue was surely - hopefully - following her own muffled steps. The leader, the head mole, knew the tunnel by heart, as Ilara would know it one day.

She would either know all its secrets as her own, or it would kill her.

Even when the sun dies, my heart remains yours, dear. The heart, even yours, remains my dear sun. When even my dear heart dies, the sun remains yours.

I have no right to feel abandoned. I’m the one leaving, after all. It doesn’t matter why, or where I’m going, or that I have no choice but to leave. It doesn’t matter that this is home, has been my home, and I’m leaving with nowhere to go, really.

It really couldn’t matter less, because I was leaving with you.

Until you decided to stay. And you know, you know that I can’t.

I can’t stay, but I can’t leave, because leaving here is leaving you.

I can’t hate you for making me leave you behind.

But I can’t help but think that this is you leaving me first.

O what a man is capable of When he has no fear of consequence Before he has learned what it is to stumble And how painful the fall He has never feared missing a step So sure that to fall is no different Than to somersault And roll unhindered along his path But perhaps we assume he’s never known pain Free from fear as he is Perhaps he has And his journey is all the more brave To we, his anxious audience, Watching from the roadside