[private] can't you see my mind is a burning hell? || ledger [m]

[Ellyse]

Ellyse

I'm the only one who will walk across a fire for you.

it's only fear that makes you run, the demons that you're hiding from.

  Time is unyielding, and it waits for no one – cruel and zealous, the days, the months, and the years dredge on, and with the repeated rise of a brilliant dawn, and the fall of a tired, weary dusk, it goes on. There are some wounds too grievous to be mended with the delicate thread of faith, and some too deep and too agonizing to bury -  time cannot mend all, after all, and anyone foolish enough to think otherwise deserved their anguish – but it did ease the ache.

   Though her pallid skin is seemingly unmarked by any scarring, and her delicate, finely preened feathers appear untouched and pristine, there are festering, seeping lesions beneath the surface of her flesh – emotional lacerations, too raw to heal – too tender to bring to the surface. Rather than expecting time to do anything but provoke her distant, buried memories of elation and bliss, she carried one – as unbending and as steadfast as time itself; unwilling to let the burden of it weigh her down.

   With a low, rumbling sigh, she draws herself away from the solitude she had permitted to take presence in her very bones – enough time had gone by, she decided, and enough time had been wasted. Though her heart still ached for what could not be, the thought of Magnus no longer caused her anguish – perhaps because she refused to let it (he had been so much to her; meant so much to her - he always would, but she could not love the ghost of what was). Her mind had not been well when she found solace in the silence and isolation; the once fortified threads that held her together had become weak,   worn and threadbare – but time had its way of mending all things.

   Her heart aches for him, for Magnus (the father of her three children; her first and only friend), but she would not seek him – she would not force his hand. It was a constant push and pull, one that left her both anxious and content, and so quietly, she had waited for him – but he had slipped away beneath the drapery of evenfall, with nary a word said to her, without even a moment of consideration for her as she bore their third (and inevitably, last) child – a daughter, supple, sweet and dark – not from her own lineage, but from his – as she labored alone.

   She would not wait any longer.

   The sun is bright, with its gleaming light weaving its way through the many finely preened rows of feathers lining the long length of her pale wings, tucked carefully along the swell of her flank. She savors the warmth of it, having spent too long tucked away within the quiet shadow of the thicket – too long kept to herself. The soft caress of the swaying grain stirs an itch along the length of her right, rear leg, and irritably, she coils her long, slender neck down, teeth grazing along the prickling irritation, warding it away. 

   There is a stirring in the brush that causes her heart to seize within her chest, as her cheek turns towards the source of the noise – a loping, seemingly brooding figure, with skin even more vividly golden than her own, and pale creamy tresses, tangled against the girth of his neck. Quietly, she presses forward, her curiosity having gotten the better of her – but it is not until his cheek is turned, and she can see the scarring of one socket and the single, dark eye roving, with flecks of gold lining the pupil that she becomes drawn to him.

   ”Looking for someone?” she muses thoughtfully, raising her neck higher and stiffening her posture, though her cheek is tilted curiously to the left, while her own hazel eyes search the familiar plane of his strong, masculine features. There is something eerily familiar about him – something she cannot quite place. 

when all your promises are gone, I'm the only one.