01-28-2017, 02:42 AM
She cannot help but watch his face as his eyes find and settle against her flickering lights. He changes somehow, softening from that hollowed out sad to something gentle, something kinder. Or maybe she has only imagined it. But for as long as his attention is bound to the false-stars, her attention is bound to him – she had missed when his eyes had been bound to her face and her quiet and the reflection of light in the blue of her skin.
It is his quiet that she is drawn to, the sootiness of his dark face and the secrets she thinks she can see swimming in the backs of those shadow-dark eyes. She has seen eyes like these before, eyes with ancient storms trapped in their bellies. Her eyes drift across his face, following the hard line of his jaw to the sloping curve of his dark neck, and then further to a strong chest and long legs the color of night except for a ring of silver around one ankle. The metal is at once soft and bright, and in the quiet glow of the galaxy swimming around them, its looks as though it could be made from trapped starlight. For a moment her attention is held captive there as she traces each delicate link, but then he shifts where he stands and those dark eyes leap back to his face.
There is a smile waiting for her though, a curve of that dark mouth and suddenly there are butterflies trapped in her stomach and she is certain they don’t belong there. At first, when those deepwater eyes find hers in the dark, she turns away from their intensity, choosing instead to watch the reflection of her stars in the ripples of water between them. But a touch at her shoulder, there and gone before she’s even had a chance to notice how close they’re standing, tugs those wild eyes back to his face like fingers beneath her chin.
“I’m glad.” She says, quiet, so soft that even the stars twinkling above them can’t hear her. Her skin still prickles, still feels warm where his breath had touched, and a strange heat creeps outward from it. She is glad he will not be able to see it beneath the murky blue of her coat.
The night feels suddenly small, impossibly small, and it takes a moment to realize that she has deepened the night so that she can only just barely make out the lines of the dark face watching her. With an inaudible exhalation of breath, she flexes the magic in her bones and pushes the night back again. It complies, stubbornly, it must know how this wears on her, and her stars spin slowly like captured fireflies.
His voice is like a beacon in the dark and she is drawn to it once more, catching the story of his words with ears that fall delicately forward beneath the tangles of dark mane. “I do, too.” She says, and the surprise in her voice is almost as deep as the night. “I live in a cave,” she amends, quietly thoughtful, her eyes light and uncertain in the dark of his face, “though mine is in a forest much like this one. Very much like this one.” There is a smile on her lips now, delicate and coy, etched like starlight into the velvet of her mouth as she pauses to trace the trees around them. “It isn’t frightening if it is home.”
Home.
But suddenly this word feels wrong, dissonant and no longer entirely true. It was home, it had always been home, but something had changed and she could feel a piece of her heart humming its disagreement now. Her brow deepened with a furrow, her mouth drawn tight with the faint lines of uncertainty, and when she turns back to find his face, to fall into the midnight of his eyes, she thinks she understands why. Her skin quivers, almost imperceptibly in the dark, and she wants to reach out across the dark as he had to push her nose against the smooth and black of his shoulder. Instead, trying to push the frown from her lips, she says, “My family lives in a Forest on the mainland. That cave is the only home I’ve ever known.” Her eyes drop from his face for just a heartbeat, but return almost instantly when she finds there is nothing else to hold her gaze quite so easily. Then, quiet as always, and with a nose that drifts impossibly close to the heat of a black, satin neck, “Why did you leave your beach, Stillwater?”
How did you know it wasn’t home, anymore, she doesn’t say.
It is his quiet that she is drawn to, the sootiness of his dark face and the secrets she thinks she can see swimming in the backs of those shadow-dark eyes. She has seen eyes like these before, eyes with ancient storms trapped in their bellies. Her eyes drift across his face, following the hard line of his jaw to the sloping curve of his dark neck, and then further to a strong chest and long legs the color of night except for a ring of silver around one ankle. The metal is at once soft and bright, and in the quiet glow of the galaxy swimming around them, its looks as though it could be made from trapped starlight. For a moment her attention is held captive there as she traces each delicate link, but then he shifts where he stands and those dark eyes leap back to his face.
There is a smile waiting for her though, a curve of that dark mouth and suddenly there are butterflies trapped in her stomach and she is certain they don’t belong there. At first, when those deepwater eyes find hers in the dark, she turns away from their intensity, choosing instead to watch the reflection of her stars in the ripples of water between them. But a touch at her shoulder, there and gone before she’s even had a chance to notice how close they’re standing, tugs those wild eyes back to his face like fingers beneath her chin.
“I’m glad.” She says, quiet, so soft that even the stars twinkling above them can’t hear her. Her skin still prickles, still feels warm where his breath had touched, and a strange heat creeps outward from it. She is glad he will not be able to see it beneath the murky blue of her coat.
The night feels suddenly small, impossibly small, and it takes a moment to realize that she has deepened the night so that she can only just barely make out the lines of the dark face watching her. With an inaudible exhalation of breath, she flexes the magic in her bones and pushes the night back again. It complies, stubbornly, it must know how this wears on her, and her stars spin slowly like captured fireflies.
His voice is like a beacon in the dark and she is drawn to it once more, catching the story of his words with ears that fall delicately forward beneath the tangles of dark mane. “I do, too.” She says, and the surprise in her voice is almost as deep as the night. “I live in a cave,” she amends, quietly thoughtful, her eyes light and uncertain in the dark of his face, “though mine is in a forest much like this one. Very much like this one.” There is a smile on her lips now, delicate and coy, etched like starlight into the velvet of her mouth as she pauses to trace the trees around them. “It isn’t frightening if it is home.”
Home.
But suddenly this word feels wrong, dissonant and no longer entirely true. It was home, it had always been home, but something had changed and she could feel a piece of her heart humming its disagreement now. Her brow deepened with a furrow, her mouth drawn tight with the faint lines of uncertainty, and when she turns back to find his face, to fall into the midnight of his eyes, she thinks she understands why. Her skin quivers, almost imperceptibly in the dark, and she wants to reach out across the dark as he had to push her nose against the smooth and black of his shoulder. Instead, trying to push the frown from her lips, she says, “My family lives in a Forest on the mainland. That cave is the only home I’ve ever known.” Her eyes drop from his face for just a heartbeat, but return almost instantly when she finds there is nothing else to hold her gaze quite so easily. Then, quiet as always, and with a nose that drifts impossibly close to the heat of a black, satin neck, “Why did you leave your beach, Stillwater?”
How did you know it wasn’t home, anymore, she doesn’t say.