She is so busy watching him that she forgets to run away, forgets to fall in with the tide that sweeps loose shells and emerald seaweed further down the shore. She can feel it brush against her legs, wrapping like vines around her heels before they give up and move on, disappointed, maybe, that she’s forgotten them.
He is mystery in beauty and she admires him from this quiet distance in the same way she would admire the streaks of soft color when they stretch gold and vibrant orange across a sky tinged in faded pink. The same way she watches the ocean from above, mesmerized by the flash of silver from the scales of small fish as they weave like tangible winds through an ocean as blue as a summer sky. He looks at her, and she can her her heart seize in her chest, feel the muscles contract in a silent gasp as those pale teal eyes go round and unsure. But then he looks away again and she is stunned, confused, because there had been no sign of horror on the lines of his pale, quiet face.
She decides with a pang that shoots all beneath her skin, electric and aching, that he must not have truly seen her.
The tide tugs again and she notices it this time, flicking one single red ear back as though she is listening to something. She frowns, starts to turn away, stops again. At this distance it is difficult to see the details of his face, impossible to know even the color of eyes she has decided must surely be so dark and stormy. But she can see the sharpening of his figure, muscles flattening through his haunches, balling up hard and round in a line low on his neck - wings that tighten against his side in a language she learned well from her brother.
He is bothered by something.
Oh.
She feels so stupid the moment she realizes herself, remembers that it is so impolite to stare, and she has been staring with such open, gaping curiosity. It’s just not very often that anyone comes here, to a section of beach where the tide pulls fiercely and the trees are thin and few, offering little relief from the heat of the sun in this tropic humidity. She gasps, suddenly shamed, feeling heat flood beneath the copper of her sleek fur when he turns so abruptly and draws closer. Her body goes soft in a language that might be submissive if not for the confusing way her antlers brandish towards him when she drops her chin lower to her chest, so bone-white and beautiful, so strange and bare.
She is waiting for him to say something, to scold her with the whip of a well-practiced tongue, but no sound comes. Her eyes lift first, that soft, impossible teal made so much less beautiful by the plate of bone stretched between them, by the congealed ring of dark blood around that. She finds his face again, struck by an urge to smile at the way something soft and hopeful flutters in her belly, but she quenches it before it can take hold, before it has a chance to do more than tug at the corners of a mouth once more quiet. It is almost as though he is not horrified by this red and bone thing he has discovered in the belly of the waves, almost as though that look on his face is curiosity instead of disgust.
It’s the first time anyone has ever looked at her that way and she struggles to recognize how it feels. Is it better to be a spectacle, better than dry horror and faces twisted and frozen in a moment of surprised revulsion.
She thinks it might be.
Ohh, and then he speaks and those soft eyes are locked so willingly on his face, on his mouth shaping words that are meant for her. Words that, for once, aren’t just about her. She isn’t sure how to decipher his tone, can’t remember how to take apart the pieces when they aren’t laced with disgust. So the coolness isn’t noted, doesn’t even touch this feeling in her chest when her mouth pulls into something so soft and sweet and nearly a smile. “Me too.” She whispers, and the words aren’t nearly as rusted as she thought they might be. He is close enough now that she can see the dark of eyes that must be brown or black.
But then he apologizes and she can feel uncertainty slip back beneath her skin to bleed into the smile fading from her lips. She shifts so slightly, exhaling sharply, blankly, at the pull of skin around bone, at the new blood that wells so bright and red against her skin. If only she’d had the foresight to hide more of herself in the water before he came so much closer. She goes still again, the slight muscles beneath her skin still taut with the effort of not flinching at pain she doesn’t want him to recognize. Weakness she prefers to keep invisible. Then she speaks again, still soft but not quite a whisper anymore, though there is an ethereal quality to the sound of her voice. Something thin and fragile. “It’s okay, you aren’t intruding.” Because it sounds like he might be trying to excuse himself and there is a knot is her chest willing him to stay awhile longer. “Do you live here on the island?” Still soft, maybe perpetually, maybe as fragile as she is.
i am brambles but i am tangled in your love