She feels electric with those eyes pinned on her, blue like the flowers she had seen in the meadow, impossibly rich and soft like a piece of the sky trapped forever. Blue like the glaciers she remembered from the shores of her Tundra, somehow pale and bright and always lit from behind, from within, glowing and alive and the kind of beautiful that kissed chills up her spine. Yes. Blue like that, and she’s realizing that blue must be her favorite color because there is no other reason for the blush that spills pink across her face or the hummingbird thrum of a heart beating unnaturally fast in her chest when he finally, finally looks away and she remembers how to breathe steady again.
It is so reflexive when she reaches out to stroke his mane, to trace the curve of that powerful neck with the soft of lips drenched in white and silk whiskers, that she almost misses the way he tenses beneath her. She forgets sometimes how they do not always like this, like her touch or her closeness or the easy way she always wants to be tucked against a stranger. There is comfort in touch, in quiet closeness - though she is often accused of ruining such quiets, of talking too freely - comfort in the whisper of life, of breath, from someone elses lungs, in the soft vibrations of a heart buried deep in the safety of a chest.
Not deep enough, not safe enough.
So hard to keep a heart safe.
She means to pull away except he lifts those eyes to her again and she is like stone, like quartz, so perfectly immobile and wide-eyed and soft and all she remembers how to do is let her limbs spill onto the ground so she can bury her nose beneath his mane. Memorize a scent she never wants to forget. Like deep forest and earth and cold because cold has a smell, has a taste, and she is drowning in it now. Cold is the wind beneath steel skies, it is the gray before snow, the dark before dawn. It is a man of faded black and pewter and purple.
Purple is not such a bad color either.
He looks away again, drops his nose to that impossible girl where he leaves clouds of fog across her skin, kisses in all the curves and hollows. It is so tender that she cannot help but glance away, soft and blushing and apologetic because why, why did she think it was okay to bother them. She should go, leave them be. Instead she speaks, whisper-soft and uncertain because words are all the knows, all she is good for. It draws him to her again except his forelock is across those eyes and she is reaching out without thinking, brushing that soft hair aside to reclaim the blue and the bright and the instant weightlessness they poured into her chest. But she lingers too long, too distracted, and his teeth clench, muscles tight beneath her lips when he finally ducks out from beneath her.
Those dark eyes go wide and sorry, closing so quickly as if she can trap that slippery embarrassment inside. As though he won’t see it anyway in the way she ducks her head, or in the loud flush of pink beneath the white of that beautiful nose. “I’m so sorry.” She whispers, she breathes, still looking everywhere but his face. At the ground and the patterns in the snow, at the grass bent beneath it and the outline of leaves etched in silver with a half-melted and refrozen glaze of ice. “I shouldn’t have, I didn’t mean to -” she stumbles over the words, barely speaking, barely audible, barely looking at him until finally she does and everything feels worse because there is new hurt and new pain and new loss in his face and it is all her fault.
But he doesn’t tell her to go, doesn’t turn from her and render her invisible and unwelcome. Instead he nods, accepts her request to stay, and she is so confused, so uncertain, so relieved for a second chance. He softens and it pulls those dark doe-eyes to him, pulls a face of enameled white and russet dapples into the sway of his impossible gravity in time to feel him exhale across her cheeks, gift her winter and calm and ease the flutter of worried wings in her chest. She lifts her chin to him and there is a smile against her lips, soft and nostalgic and so beautiful with remembering. Her eyes close but it doesn’t matter because they are already hidden behind the dark curtain of her forelock. She doesn’t need to see it to know that she is like the leaves etched in silver, that she is lace and trapped starlight and glittering beneath the chill of his beautiful winter.
There is a sigh on her lips, a smile against her mouth and it is soft and radiant and warm enough to thaw even him, perhaps. Her eyes open to find him watching her - and oh that blue again, that impossible blue - so she offers him a softer smile, forgets herself and kisses his nose in wordless gratitude, surprised at the softness. Like freshly fallen snow, like velvety down. She blinks, is glad for a reason to look away, to follow his gaze to the slumbering glass child in the crook of his body, watch the strange heave of an impossible chest filling with breath. “I haven’t,” she answers honestly, leans a little closer to better see, “she’s beautiful though.” But that was dangerous. Beautiful things are for coveting, for loving too much and too harshly. “She’s lucky it was you that found her.” There’s a pause in her voice, a gentle hesitation when those plain brown eyes return to his face and search for something in that beautiful dark. Then, so quietly, “Do you always hold so tight to the lost souls you come across?”
Me, she doesn’t say, will you hold tight to me.
Just for a while, just until this storm in my heart breaks.
It is so reflexive when she reaches out to stroke his mane, to trace the curve of that powerful neck with the soft of lips drenched in white and silk whiskers, that she almost misses the way he tenses beneath her. She forgets sometimes how they do not always like this, like her touch or her closeness or the easy way she always wants to be tucked against a stranger. There is comfort in touch, in quiet closeness - though she is often accused of ruining such quiets, of talking too freely - comfort in the whisper of life, of breath, from someone elses lungs, in the soft vibrations of a heart buried deep in the safety of a chest.
Not deep enough, not safe enough.
So hard to keep a heart safe.
She means to pull away except he lifts those eyes to her again and she is like stone, like quartz, so perfectly immobile and wide-eyed and soft and all she remembers how to do is let her limbs spill onto the ground so she can bury her nose beneath his mane. Memorize a scent she never wants to forget. Like deep forest and earth and cold because cold has a smell, has a taste, and she is drowning in it now. Cold is the wind beneath steel skies, it is the gray before snow, the dark before dawn. It is a man of faded black and pewter and purple.
Purple is not such a bad color either.
He looks away again, drops his nose to that impossible girl where he leaves clouds of fog across her skin, kisses in all the curves and hollows. It is so tender that she cannot help but glance away, soft and blushing and apologetic because why, why did she think it was okay to bother them. She should go, leave them be. Instead she speaks, whisper-soft and uncertain because words are all the knows, all she is good for. It draws him to her again except his forelock is across those eyes and she is reaching out without thinking, brushing that soft hair aside to reclaim the blue and the bright and the instant weightlessness they poured into her chest. But she lingers too long, too distracted, and his teeth clench, muscles tight beneath her lips when he finally ducks out from beneath her.
Those dark eyes go wide and sorry, closing so quickly as if she can trap that slippery embarrassment inside. As though he won’t see it anyway in the way she ducks her head, or in the loud flush of pink beneath the white of that beautiful nose. “I’m so sorry.” She whispers, she breathes, still looking everywhere but his face. At the ground and the patterns in the snow, at the grass bent beneath it and the outline of leaves etched in silver with a half-melted and refrozen glaze of ice. “I shouldn’t have, I didn’t mean to -” she stumbles over the words, barely speaking, barely audible, barely looking at him until finally she does and everything feels worse because there is new hurt and new pain and new loss in his face and it is all her fault.
But he doesn’t tell her to go, doesn’t turn from her and render her invisible and unwelcome. Instead he nods, accepts her request to stay, and she is so confused, so uncertain, so relieved for a second chance. He softens and it pulls those dark doe-eyes to him, pulls a face of enameled white and russet dapples into the sway of his impossible gravity in time to feel him exhale across her cheeks, gift her winter and calm and ease the flutter of worried wings in her chest. She lifts her chin to him and there is a smile against her lips, soft and nostalgic and so beautiful with remembering. Her eyes close but it doesn’t matter because they are already hidden behind the dark curtain of her forelock. She doesn’t need to see it to know that she is like the leaves etched in silver, that she is lace and trapped starlight and glittering beneath the chill of his beautiful winter.
There is a sigh on her lips, a smile against her mouth and it is soft and radiant and warm enough to thaw even him, perhaps. Her eyes open to find him watching her - and oh that blue again, that impossible blue - so she offers him a softer smile, forgets herself and kisses his nose in wordless gratitude, surprised at the softness. Like freshly fallen snow, like velvety down. She blinks, is glad for a reason to look away, to follow his gaze to the slumbering glass child in the crook of his body, watch the strange heave of an impossible chest filling with breath. “I haven’t,” she answers honestly, leans a little closer to better see, “she’s beautiful though.” But that was dangerous. Beautiful things are for coveting, for loving too much and too harshly. “She’s lucky it was you that found her.” There’s a pause in her voice, a gentle hesitation when those plain brown eyes return to his face and search for something in that beautiful dark. Then, so quietly, “Do you always hold so tight to the lost souls you come across?”
Me, she doesn’t say, will you hold tight to me.
Just for a while, just until this storm in my heart breaks.