OPEN | prompt seven | ARTHUR

[staircases]

prompt seven | A R T H U R prompt style. start your own thread. leave an image, a quote, anything. receive arthur. open to pre-canon, au, crossover, whatever you can come up with.

 

Comments

canon/pre-canon idk yolo.

[minds]

( post-mal pre-canon )

[staircases]

[ It rains on the last day Arthur ever gets to see a dream that Dom has built herself.

A castle of sleet-grey stone, risen out of the middle of a glassine lake — multicolored fishes swimming in the waters that surround it, painting vibrant eddies beneath the unbroken surface. (Things seen but untouched like life under glass, like children you watch grow in photographs but never in real life, like dreams. Vivid but elusive.) These swirls of scale and tail and fin on occasion give a valiant leap into the air and land again into the lake with a sharp splash — the sound of grass breaking underfoot every time, of wineglass stems snapping, of needle rain upon the windows. Arthur isn't entirely sure what it all means but he can tell by the way the fog never seems to lift, the way the trees in the distance are heather green like the color of Mal's eyes, that this is a landscape of grief, of beauty made elusive by loss.

(What happened in that hotel room, Dom? Why won't you just tell me? Arthur asks once in the weeks that follow the incident, in the days that precede her eventual flight. Arthur asks once and Dom doesn't answer. Part of Arhtur thinks the only reason she doesn't say anything is because he hasn't earned it yet.

He never asks again.)

They're standing together on the shores. Both barefoot, their pants rolled up to their knees, the water warm as it laps against their shins and the shoals cool beneath the soles of their feet. For a very long time, no one says anything. Arthur squints out over the water and the mist towards those distrant trees. (They seem so sad.) ]

It's nice. Quiet. Idyllic. [ A beat, and then: ] What's the catch?

[minds]

[ The smile that crosses her face doesn't reach her eyes, but it's an attempt.

(Dom remembers to be kind to him, sometimes.) ]

No catch. [ Her mouth forms the words but they fall heavy from her lips, as if each syllable has a mass to it. They call that grief. She knows this because there is a stack of books on the kitchen counter, Coping with Loss: A Parent's Guide, Grief and You and Your Kids. It's— That's not important right now. It's... it is what it is. She wiggles her toes and follows his line of sight to the trees instead. (I am so, so sorry, Mal.)

She doesn't think about him. This happens because she thinks about Mal always, there in the spaces between each inhale and every exhale; to say she thinks about anything else would be false when it's a haze that's always there. Haze is a good word for it. These days, nothing feels quite right, does it?

(Marie had dropped by earlier. Dom doesn't remember the details of that either, though maybe she should.) ]

It's just. [ Her voice is quiet. Low. There's a heavy pause before Dom finishes the rest, head bowed as she peers at her feet. The cuffs of her pants are wet from a series of stronger waves, but it's not particularly bothersome. ] I needed to think. You're right— it is quiet.