07-01-2021, 04:29 PM
este
He is beautiful, and she cannot stop staring.
She realizes this, belatedly, but other than a heat that flushes her cheeks she does not stop herself. Her doe-like eyes are locked on his face, and they only divert to sweep across the rest of him. He is so much more than she remembered, and she finds herself cursing her fevered memory. He has haunted her dreams, but not even her dreams have done him justice; they watered him down, drunkenly blurred his edges, and she sees that all with a stark clarity. The way she tries to commit him to memory is nearly desperate, as if this is the only chance she will have to see him, because she is so sure he will disappear into the dark again.
And so she memorizes all of him in the fleeting moments in which he allows her to stare at him—moments that last mere heartbeats but feel like years; an eternity that is over the moment she blinks her eyes.
There is the ring of silver around his pupil that is nearly hidden by the molten gold, and the way his mane is spun of nightfall and stardust; the way his lips pull into a frown and his face becomes unreadable, but all she can do is wonder what he hides beneath that shadowed exterior.
He is dark and she is light, but she does not see how anything as stunning as him could ever crush her the way the endless night had.
Only, he retreats from her light, and she feels her heart squeeze in her chest with hurt and shame. She has never experienced any kind of rejection, but she recognizes that perhaps it had been foolish of her to think someone made entirely of the dark would want to be around someone only meant for the light. The rosy glow is noticeably subdued, only a faint blush that mostly keeps to her dapples. She wants to apologize to him, but it catches in her throat at the way his voice seems to soften when he asks her a question. “I don’t remember much. I just remember you were there, and I knew I didn’t have to be afraid of you.”
When he steps forward again she can feel her skin begin to warm, but she locks away her remaining light, ensuring that it cannot find a way out of her skin. She lets herself succumb to the night that he has cast around himself, and when she looks at him with her searching stare it is approval she is looking for—for any kind of reassurance that this is what he was silently asking for, to diminish her light so that she might see his night in its entirety. Her gaze lifts to look in wonder at the stars he has planted in the tree branches, to the ones that drift lazily around them, but always, her eyes are drawn back to his handsome face.
“Este,” she breathes around the wistful excitement in her chest, her young heart fluttering. “She told me your name is Illum, and that you saved her, once.” There is a pause, eyes still flickering across his own, as she gathers her courage to ask him quietly, hopefully, “Were you trying to save me, too?”
She realizes this, belatedly, but other than a heat that flushes her cheeks she does not stop herself. Her doe-like eyes are locked on his face, and they only divert to sweep across the rest of him. He is so much more than she remembered, and she finds herself cursing her fevered memory. He has haunted her dreams, but not even her dreams have done him justice; they watered him down, drunkenly blurred his edges, and she sees that all with a stark clarity. The way she tries to commit him to memory is nearly desperate, as if this is the only chance she will have to see him, because she is so sure he will disappear into the dark again.
And so she memorizes all of him in the fleeting moments in which he allows her to stare at him—moments that last mere heartbeats but feel like years; an eternity that is over the moment she blinks her eyes.
There is the ring of silver around his pupil that is nearly hidden by the molten gold, and the way his mane is spun of nightfall and stardust; the way his lips pull into a frown and his face becomes unreadable, but all she can do is wonder what he hides beneath that shadowed exterior.
He is dark and she is light, but she does not see how anything as stunning as him could ever crush her the way the endless night had.
Only, he retreats from her light, and she feels her heart squeeze in her chest with hurt and shame. She has never experienced any kind of rejection, but she recognizes that perhaps it had been foolish of her to think someone made entirely of the dark would want to be around someone only meant for the light. The rosy glow is noticeably subdued, only a faint blush that mostly keeps to her dapples. She wants to apologize to him, but it catches in her throat at the way his voice seems to soften when he asks her a question. “I don’t remember much. I just remember you were there, and I knew I didn’t have to be afraid of you.”
When he steps forward again she can feel her skin begin to warm, but she locks away her remaining light, ensuring that it cannot find a way out of her skin. She lets herself succumb to the night that he has cast around himself, and when she looks at him with her searching stare it is approval she is looking for—for any kind of reassurance that this is what he was silently asking for, to diminish her light so that she might see his night in its entirety. Her gaze lifts to look in wonder at the stars he has planted in the tree branches, to the ones that drift lazily around them, but always, her eyes are drawn back to his handsome face.
“Este,” she breathes around the wistful excitement in her chest, her young heart fluttering. “She told me your name is Illum, and that you saved her, once.” There is a pause, eyes still flickering across his own, as she gathers her courage to ask him quietly, hopefully, “Were you trying to save me, too?”
BUT WHO COULD STAY?
@Illum