i feel hope deep in my bones; tomorrow will be beautiful
It has been a long time since he found himself wishing for his sight again, a long time since he felt that pang of poisonous regret coiling inside his gut, a feeling like life had been unkind to take that which it gives freely to so many others. But he feels it now and the emotion touches briefly in the dark and frost of his quiet face, pinching in his brow and tightening at the corners of his mouth. Had he any need to, he would’ve looked away from her, but the gesture had never grown roots in him without eyes to see the judgement of others.
She says his name, and on her tongue the word sounds fragile, delicate in some way that he is not. Like it is something she protects, something dear despite that they are little more than strangers. He cannot help but wonder if he is imagining it, if it comes from an ache inside him to feel any kind of connection in this empty dark behind his eyes. But when he tries to remember her face again, something small and kind with gentle eyes and an absent smile for everything her gaze touched, he is sure it is not imagined.
“No one.” He says, and he isn’t sure if he is agreeing with her or if he wants to hear the contrast of his voice to the gentleness of hers. He is not surprised that they sound nothing alike. And then,with a surprising new warmth blossoming warily in his chest, though the dark of him threatens to extinguish it, “Yes. Today I know Olena.” He says her name deliberately, though he is disappointed by the way it sounds different in his voice. He is too heavy, where she is like the lightness of something winged.
His head swings in the direction of the groan, and for a long time he is fighting a quiet that seems to weigh down so heavily over his dark shoulders. He is good at upsetting others, perhaps as good at it as this Rillian is at being upset, but he keeps this truth to himself, shamed by it.
And then she asks about his eyes and that shame ripples through him again, quiet and wary and growing as he lets the silence fill between them. “I did. I am usually more gentle, I apologize. I am sure it was unpleasant for him, he is justified in his dislike for me.” He smiles, but it is sad and self deprecating and it looks harsh in the lines of his face. But then she moves closer and his face goes slack, listening for the sound of her, wondering how close she intends to get. But she stops and he exhales the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
“Then I will show you all the best places to visit.” He says, and he does take a step closer, pausing only at the heat radiating from her body. He reaches out to brush his mouth across her skin, and he wonders if she can feel the frost clinging thinly to his lips. “But,” and he pauses again, and this time his face turns in the direction of the elk moving through the woods, his expression curiously different now, decidedly changed. “The best tours happen after dark. Unless you have a curfew?” A small smile dances in the corners of his lips, nearly invisible except for the way his voice has changed too.
Lumos
@[Olena]