06-17-2017, 07:22 PM
something has been taken from deep inside of me;
the secret I've kept locked away no one can ever see.
the secret I've kept locked away no one can ever see.
A body too old, sheathed in its own immortality (the fire, slowly burning in the hearth of his chest, has already begun to ebb away at the delicate edges of his eternal youth, though he would not recognize the change for years to come). His bright, searing eyes steady upon her, observing the soft curve of her face, wondering how long she had walked the Earth, and if she had ever longed for Death as he had.
Her tone is different, then – sparkling with electricity, but his gaze does not waver, steadied still on the deep, seemingly endless viridescent irises that bore into his own. Her words are careful, but bristling – a defensive stance slowly filling the space in between her coiled muscles and the bone that lie within, causing her to stiffen – perhaps with indignation. He, himself, had been known for ire. He had patience, but it wore particularly thin with cryptic dialogue, or thinly-veiled lies – he had no time, nor any tolerance for it. Even those given everlasting life grew tired of the echo of what had been said before.
Her explanation is heavy, but a vivid image is painted within his mind – an image he realized now had been diluted with a lack of information. He can hardly stifle a scoff at the mention of Romek; the pathetic excuse for manhood that had betrayed him, stolen his daughter away, and faltered as so many of the ill-fated power-hungry did. He had trusted him once – nearly handed him the throne, before the frigid land of ice had crumbled beneath him, reformed – reshaped, and lost forever. He had trusted him once. He would never do so again, and perhaps that is where his bridling wariness of her is born.
But her mouth, warm and dark, presses against the heat of his shoulder, and his wariness is brushed away with the soft, soothing caress of the breeze. Her words are soft, hushed - I am not your enemy, and somewhere, deep within, it is a truth that he already knows. When he casts a glance to her, her eyes are looking elsewhere – somewhere beyond, lost within the vivid color of a falling sun, where a starlit sky illuminates what pale sunlight once had. There is a soft, melancholy wistfulness to her voice, and the corners of his mouth deepen into a frown as the salty brine of a fallen tears trickles down the plane of her cheek.
”Ruan,” he murmurs, though without any indication of resentment – only indifference, really – he knew what distant names oversaw the borders of which kingdom, though he had no face to place alongside it, nor any awareness of him in any actuality. ”the isolated King of Taiga." His gaze is settled elsewhere – lost somewhere within the rippling, roaring waters before him, watching the way each turbulent surge of fresh water folds into the next. ”If he has found it so easy to cast you away, to replace you, well, the truth may be that he never loved you at all.”
Gently, he touches the warmth of his mouth to her neck, feeling her blood pulse beneath his touch.
”You deserve more than that, Reagan. Do not give him the satisfaction of your misery. What is not meant to be will crumble, and with it, the weak will crumble, too.”
And the fire burns brighter, suddenly, nearly taking the breath from his lungs, causing him to grimace with discomfort. It so longs to be let out, to be released, to take to his skin and surge with the same prowess of the rumbling volcano of his domicile, or the fury of the river before him. His teeth, faintly yellowed but perfectly aligned, clench tightly as the discomfort courses through him, leaving him altogether scalding hot to the touch before leaving his skin slick, and dampened with sweat.
Freedom - he has never known such a thing, at least not since the distant, far-off days of his youth, before his mother had been slain before him, her dead and decaying body left to rot where he had cradled her close – her blood still splattered across the darkness of his skin. Trapped within a lonely, eternal life, or beneath the frigid hand of winter, and even now under the hot suffocation of his fire, he has always been held captive by something deeper, darker, larger than himself.
He has never known freedom, and to hear her speak of it leaves a void of longing within him.
He can feel the warmth of her breath across the length of his spine, and an involuntary shiver traverses the vertebrae. His heart is pounding inside of his chest - thump, thump, thump - rhythmic and steady, but its pace quickens, as does the adrenaline flooding through his veins. The flickering ember in the rolling pit of his stomach has grown tenfold, yearning to be released, aching to be exposed to the caress of dawn’s light. He can feel her heart pounding, too, against his flesh, disjointed but then beating in time with his own, and his mind is rampant with thoughts moving as swiftly and as freely as the rushing water before him.
Her skin is hot against his own, which stirs him from his brief reverie, as the darkened, glowing flames tucked within his watchful gaze set upon her. She is flush against him, her shoulder tucked against the high curve of his hip, and uncertainty weighs heavily on his mind. She is powerful (it oozes from her very pores), yet vulnerable – intriguing and mysterious, yet open. His whiskered mouth presses against the curve of her own hip, as a fleeting thought crosses his mind – a lustful one, giving weight the idea that he is nothing extraordinary – just another man, bestowed with a curse, but still wholly mortal.
”My heart is worthless. I have done little with it but hurt those I love,” and his mind drifts away to somewhere off in the distance, to Isle and to her gentle embrace – to her watchful, hesitant gaze – she loved him, and he had been unfaithful, hurtful – scalding. She deserved so much more than he, but still, she stayed. He often wondered why. ”trust me when I say, it has no price worth paying.”
wounds so deep they never show; they never go away.
like moving pictures in my head, for years and years they've played.
like moving pictures in my head, for years and years they've played.
Offspring