If he thought she had not seen the guilt in his eyes when they had reunited, he was wrong.
Foolish.
And he is rarely ever foolish.
She had seen it – she had felt it. They were too close – too fashioned of the same cloth – for her to have missed the crinkling forehead under her kiss.
Her lips curl and quiver into a scowl, but she watches from behind trees and underbrush, until the thing that blossoms between them becomes unbearable. Until it hurts.
Until her eyes become red and dry from the autumnal wind that makes them huddle together even closer, necks tangled and breath evening out into a slumberous hum.
—bleary and heavy.
----
‘Don’t go far.’ It echos, as if in a world contained by the slimy walls of a cave.
It is young and sing-song, and he answers, ‘I won’t. I promise.’
It is boyish and earnest.
She can see him, gangly and stern-eyed, contained by a million miniature galaxies, blinking over at her from across their nest made of fat pillows and woven blankets.
Around them curve, perfectly circular, stone walls.
Far below their tower room, pine trees grow far into the black horizon. They are like passengers in a ship lost at sea.
A fire glows somewhere nearby, it’s light dances and it’s warmth eats away at the wind that whistles through windows carved, wide and glassless, all the way around the circumference.
And so it is, like a chain that binds them from the inside out. ‘I promise.’
She smiles and on her head is a crown of baby roses and newborn starlight; her indigo hair curls around her bright face and down her golden neck. He smiles back, a thick, metal loop circling his thin neck, engraved with ornate, stellar patterns. A single row of glittering links falls from it, between his bent knees, then fork off, each end fastened to a smaller ring, circling both of his front ankles.
Her eyes become bleary and heavy.
The world shakes her awake, and her body is not young but full and her crown sits in a pile ash at her feet – she flinches as each young star dies and each rose withers.
He is not there. He was not there.
She is alone, in a fractured chamber, groaning under the weight of its own fiction. ‘GIVER–” the name catches in her tightening chest as she scrambles to stand. Around the tossing tower, silvery links are strewn like constellations, broken and bent. ‘No. No,’ tears trailing down her cheeks, hot and hopeless, as she follows them like some lost astronaut. The floor gives away with a sudden, sharp jolt as limestone cracks and crumbles.
And she falls.
‘NO!’
She falls, but the pinewood below does not get the pleasure of impaling her.
She is caught, instead, in a web of many, infinitesimal gravities. Cold and without weight, she hurtles ever towards the event horizon, through distances like galaxies and deep space. Blind and cold, past the vast, gaping mouths of worm holes; hot, as she approaches mighty suns and does not turn from them, but searches their flares for his scent. Forever.
(She felt like it had been forever.
But time is a queer thing here.)
‘Giver...?’ This is his place. With no time and no boundaries, in a kingdom of colossal emptiness; bereft of spring flowers and jeweled birds; princesses and princes; too close to the moon to be romantic. She blinks, tears slip off her face and suspend around her like many frozen raindrops.
She can see now that it is a dead body – colourless and bleak.
‘Giver!’ She shutters her eyes tight, picturing, instead, their childhood games. Like reenacting Shakespeare alone in the dark, skipping through trees and listening to mother’s tales. (Princesses and princes, and monsters.)
‘GIVER!’ Her voice shatters the utter quiet and suddenly, her lungs deflate, trying without success to feed off the vacuum. She sucks in, but her efforts are greeted only by a sensation like a fist squeezing her body. She feels her skin grow tight to her bones, wrinkling as moisture drains from the supple curves of her hip and neck.
She blinks, tears blur her vision. She can see the dead all around her – the moon. The stars. The skeleton drawn out in their formations. The Reaper. Hooded and holding a scythe in each bony hand. (Like no constellation he had ever pointed out to her before.) He turns to her, star-death, and so it is...
She blinks, but her eyes are growing heavy as she hurtles ever towards a shared fate with them.
When her eyes reopen, she is standing, knee-deep, in icy water. It’s dark, calm surface reflecting the blinks and glows of the night sky above. ‘Her?’ She protects her hurt with a veneer of careless incredulity. (He is rarely ever foolish.)
He stands beside her, and while he wears his own supernovas, he is not wearing his chains.
‘You’ll like her, Alight. I promise.’
She blinks down at her own reflection, his wavering to her right.
‘I’m sure.’ Spittle sprays from her mouth. ‘I’m sure she is lovely,’ ripples cascade away, almost violently, as something heavy and solid crashes into the water. She squints, dropping her head down to inspect as it bobs away like a duck n a lake.
‘Hmm... Skin,’ he mutters, absentmindedly. In the crooked mirror of water, she can see he is looking over his shoulder at something enticing on the beach.
‘Yes.’ She agrees, examining the bright white underside of her mandible. ‘What… ith her… name?’ Acid liquefies her jaw into a messy slop, her tongue (fat and pink) lolling down her thin, golden neck. She can taste sea salt, dirt, horsehair and meat. She watches her throat take to it, like fire to dry kindling, melting and bubbling; sloughing off her in steaks and strange cocktails of fat and blood. Until her tongue, too, bobs away from her, off to the dark horizon.
Until she can see the way each vertebrae connects and moves together. Watches, as her heart and gut – liver and unused uterus – fall from between the graceless spires of her ribs. Until, ringed in the rippled stars, and the dead bodies of Once-Was-Alight, is the imitation of Pale Death.
‘Well. Hey,’ Giver says, slow and casual, in a tone that pleads for disengagement to be as gentle (and as quick) as possible, ‘I have to go. I’ll come see you later. I promise.’
She turns her eyes away from the grisly sea, following his body back to the beach – glowing faintly like the moon from down here – her, pale and black-bonneted, beside him. Flowers tangle in the wild mess of her tail, and on her head is a crown of starlight and grass.
He brings constellations to her; points out the ram’s horns and lion’s stride. Dully, she wonders why he can glow but her skin cannot repair itself – she wonders what the woman’s name is, but when she opens the hinges of her bare-bone face to yell after them, she has no organs to make or guide the sound. She only creaks and clicks.
She watches them until the thing that blossoms between them becomes unbearable. Until it hurts.
Until her eyes become red and dry from the sharp, caustic rot that gurgles from within.
—bleary and heavy, they are consumed, and she falls below the surface of that liquid cosmos surrounding her.
------
Kristin's Spark is mentioned, of course. We are looking at just over 1,200 words. And I dunno if I'm eligible to enter because of the race quest? I really, REALLY hope so, but if not, I'll be damned if I'm not glad I got to write this, regardless. If I do place... eeeeehhhhh, I'm slightly nervous, but, why not a Halloween surprise. xD
Foolish.
And he is rarely ever foolish.
She had seen it – she had felt it. They were too close – too fashioned of the same cloth – for her to have missed the crinkling forehead under her kiss.
Her lips curl and quiver into a scowl, but she watches from behind trees and underbrush, until the thing that blossoms between them becomes unbearable. Until it hurts.
Until her eyes become red and dry from the autumnal wind that makes them huddle together even closer, necks tangled and breath evening out into a slumberous hum.
—bleary and heavy.
----
‘Don’t go far.’ It echos, as if in a world contained by the slimy walls of a cave.
It is young and sing-song, and he answers, ‘I won’t. I promise.’
It is boyish and earnest.
She can see him, gangly and stern-eyed, contained by a million miniature galaxies, blinking over at her from across their nest made of fat pillows and woven blankets.
Around them curve, perfectly circular, stone walls.
Far below their tower room, pine trees grow far into the black horizon. They are like passengers in a ship lost at sea.
A fire glows somewhere nearby, it’s light dances and it’s warmth eats away at the wind that whistles through windows carved, wide and glassless, all the way around the circumference.
And so it is, like a chain that binds them from the inside out. ‘I promise.’
She smiles and on her head is a crown of baby roses and newborn starlight; her indigo hair curls around her bright face and down her golden neck. He smiles back, a thick, metal loop circling his thin neck, engraved with ornate, stellar patterns. A single row of glittering links falls from it, between his bent knees, then fork off, each end fastened to a smaller ring, circling both of his front ankles.
Her eyes become bleary and heavy.
The world shakes her awake, and her body is not young but full and her crown sits in a pile ash at her feet – she flinches as each young star dies and each rose withers.
He is not there. He was not there.
She is alone, in a fractured chamber, groaning under the weight of its own fiction. ‘GIVER–” the name catches in her tightening chest as she scrambles to stand. Around the tossing tower, silvery links are strewn like constellations, broken and bent. ‘No. No,’ tears trailing down her cheeks, hot and hopeless, as she follows them like some lost astronaut. The floor gives away with a sudden, sharp jolt as limestone cracks and crumbles.
And she falls.
‘NO!’
She falls, but the pinewood below does not get the pleasure of impaling her.
She is caught, instead, in a web of many, infinitesimal gravities. Cold and without weight, she hurtles ever towards the event horizon, through distances like galaxies and deep space. Blind and cold, past the vast, gaping mouths of worm holes; hot, as she approaches mighty suns and does not turn from them, but searches their flares for his scent. Forever.
(She felt like it had been forever.
But time is a queer thing here.)
‘Giver...?’ This is his place. With no time and no boundaries, in a kingdom of colossal emptiness; bereft of spring flowers and jeweled birds; princesses and princes; too close to the moon to be romantic. She blinks, tears slip off her face and suspend around her like many frozen raindrops.
She can see now that it is a dead body – colourless and bleak.
‘Giver!’ She shutters her eyes tight, picturing, instead, their childhood games. Like reenacting Shakespeare alone in the dark, skipping through trees and listening to mother’s tales. (Princesses and princes, and monsters.)
‘GIVER!’ Her voice shatters the utter quiet and suddenly, her lungs deflate, trying without success to feed off the vacuum. She sucks in, but her efforts are greeted only by a sensation like a fist squeezing her body. She feels her skin grow tight to her bones, wrinkling as moisture drains from the supple curves of her hip and neck.
She blinks, tears blur her vision. She can see the dead all around her – the moon. The stars. The skeleton drawn out in their formations. The Reaper. Hooded and holding a scythe in each bony hand. (Like no constellation he had ever pointed out to her before.) He turns to her, star-death, and so it is...
She blinks, but her eyes are growing heavy as she hurtles ever towards a shared fate with them.
When her eyes reopen, she is standing, knee-deep, in icy water. It’s dark, calm surface reflecting the blinks and glows of the night sky above. ‘Her?’ She protects her hurt with a veneer of careless incredulity. (He is rarely ever foolish.)
He stands beside her, and while he wears his own supernovas, he is not wearing his chains.
‘You’ll like her, Alight. I promise.’
She blinks down at her own reflection, his wavering to her right.
‘I’m sure.’ Spittle sprays from her mouth. ‘I’m sure she is lovely,’ ripples cascade away, almost violently, as something heavy and solid crashes into the water. She squints, dropping her head down to inspect as it bobs away like a duck n a lake.
‘Hmm... Skin,’ he mutters, absentmindedly. In the crooked mirror of water, she can see he is looking over his shoulder at something enticing on the beach.
‘Yes.’ She agrees, examining the bright white underside of her mandible. ‘What… ith her… name?’ Acid liquefies her jaw into a messy slop, her tongue (fat and pink) lolling down her thin, golden neck. She can taste sea salt, dirt, horsehair and meat. She watches her throat take to it, like fire to dry kindling, melting and bubbling; sloughing off her in steaks and strange cocktails of fat and blood. Until her tongue, too, bobs away from her, off to the dark horizon.
Until she can see the way each vertebrae connects and moves together. Watches, as her heart and gut – liver and unused uterus – fall from between the graceless spires of her ribs. Until, ringed in the rippled stars, and the dead bodies of Once-Was-Alight, is the imitation of Pale Death.
‘Well. Hey,’ Giver says, slow and casual, in a tone that pleads for disengagement to be as gentle (and as quick) as possible, ‘I have to go. I’ll come see you later. I promise.’
She turns her eyes away from the grisly sea, following his body back to the beach – glowing faintly like the moon from down here – her, pale and black-bonneted, beside him. Flowers tangle in the wild mess of her tail, and on her head is a crown of starlight and grass.
He brings constellations to her; points out the ram’s horns and lion’s stride. Dully, she wonders why he can glow but her skin cannot repair itself – she wonders what the woman’s name is, but when she opens the hinges of her bare-bone face to yell after them, she has no organs to make or guide the sound. She only creaks and clicks.
She watches them until the thing that blossoms between them becomes unbearable. Until it hurts.
Until her eyes become red and dry from the sharp, caustic rot that gurgles from within.
—bleary and heavy, they are consumed, and she falls below the surface of that liquid cosmos surrounding her.
------
Kristin's Spark is mentioned, of course. We are looking at just over 1,200 words. And I dunno if I'm eligible to enter because of the race quest? I really, REALLY hope so, but if not, I'll be damned if I'm not glad I got to write this, regardless. If I do place... eeeeehhhhh, I'm slightly nervous, but, why not a Halloween surprise. xD
![[Image: RS84HN4.png]](http://i.imgur.com/RS84HN4.png)
Pollock x Malis
pixel base by bronzehalo