The Ballad of Never After

“It hurts, Jacks.”

“I know, love. I’m going to take you somewhere safe.”

The kind of old that changed the scent of the air.

She wasn’t sure exactly when she’d fallen out of love with Luc. In fact, she wasn’t entirely certain that she had. It felt more like she’d left behind her love for Luc with the version of herself that she’d been before. Back when she believed that first love and true love and forever love were all the same.

Happy endings can be caught, but they are difficult to hold on to. They are dreams that want to escape the night. They are treasure with wings. They are wild, feral, reckless things that need to be constantly chased, or they will certainly run away.

Dark was for stars and dreams and the magic that took place in between days.

“Sorry to break your fairytale, Little Fox, but ballads don’t end happily, and neither do the two of us.”

She used to think love was like a house. Once it was built, a person got to live in it forever. But now she wondered if love was more like a war with new foes constantly appearing and battles creeping up. Winning at love was less about succeeding in a battle and more about continuing to fight, to choose the person you loved as the one you were willing to die for, over and over.

Evangeline knew he would carry her through more than just freezing waters. He would pull her through fire if he had to, haul her from the clutches of war, from falling cities and breaking worlds.

you’ve always known what I am. I never tried to pretend otherwise, you just let yourself believe I was something I’m not.

She held him as if he were hers and she were his, and there was nothing else between them. No curses. No lies. No past wounds or mistakes. She held him as if there was only now, as if nothing mattered but this moment. Then she let him go. S