[open] like atomic bombs in reverse

[isakov]

throw me in the water, don’t think about the splash i will create
leave me at the altar, knowing all the things you just escaped

It is not often that he wanders far from the river.
He has so little desire to expand his horizons. He is comfortable there by the water.
Especially now that he has left his mother’s side for the last time. Left behind the glass stallion and their two glass daughters. There is no one expecting him to be anyplace else, least of all the meadow where they had lived together.

But he drifts away from the water’s edge now. He does not know what beckons him, but he goes willingly into the forest. There is some thrill in the darkness that reminds him of the way he leans into the river’s current, daring it to take him. But it never does. And the darkness tries but cannot swallow him whole.

He is drawn through the shadows by a light in the distance. The steady flicker of a flame. It piques his curiosity, carries him across the soft floor of pine needles and rot. And when he finally reaches it, he is surprised to see the girl that wields it. Commands and controls and shapes it.

He smiles. He smiles and moves easy from the shadows, into the flame’s pulsing light. “Hello,” he murmurs, head tilted as he considers her dark face, lit up in orange. “What a gift you have,” he says, smooth, thinking of the glass stallion’s ability to conjure water from nothing.

The smile deepens as he turns his attention back to her face, feeling that same glimmer of a siren song just beneath her surface. It draws him closer. “Absolutely spectacular,” he adds, breathless.

isakov

@[Sunlight]