leave me at the altar, knowing all the things you just escaped
He should not have asked.
That is immediately clear when she abruptly shifts back into her equine form and takes a step backward, away from him.
Something sordid blossoms in his chest and splinters outward from the epicenter, something rank and poisonous. It thins his breath, tempers his pulse. How desperately he wants to go to her. How terribly he wants to wrap her in an embrace, hold her close and assure her that things will be all right. But he knows that there are so few souls in the world worthy of being trusted. And isn’t it true that he is not among them?
He watches her, powerless, as the tears pool in those soft green eyes and there is nothing he can do to stop them.
Skandar.
He will never forget the name.
He will carry it in his chest.
He will wait so patiently.
He will wait so ferociously.
He nods now and swallows but does not speak.
He understands that friends are not always friends.
What troubles him most is that the fireflies go still. They descend, alight in her hair as if drawing near, as if closing around her in an embrace. He wishes he could do the same. But she had drawn away from him and he knows better than to follow her.
Does she love the swan? Perhaps he is too distracted by how troubled he is by her trouble. He shrugs on the illusion of what he tries to see shimmering beneath her surface. But he cannot tell if it is the swan. He cannot tell what it is at all that looks back at her. He cannot see what she loves, does not know what form the illusion takes.
He just smiles at her and says, “won’t you smile for me?”
@[Avelina]