09-13-2021, 09:34 AM
“Likely, yes.” She tells him, again making no effort to hide secrets in her words or the curious way she studies these changes of emotion in his face like ripples across a pond. “But I would almost certainly lie to you. Pity is worse than the pain itself, I think. It is meant to be a kindness, but it traps you inside an expectation of what someone else thinks you should be feeling.” She finds it easy to be honest with him, perhaps because it does not seem like he is making any effort to hide things from her either. She cannot possibly know the way he is silently siphoning away pieces she would rather keep buried.
When he laughs this time, she merely studies him in her quiet clearwater way, trying once again to decide what it is that drives him. Light like the sun? Certainly. Or perhaps more like a flame that she should be wary of being burned by. “Are you always so easily amused by strangers? Or am I particularly entertaining.” The question is light and inquisitive, and though there is a hint of steel in those impossibly clear eyes, there is no distinct ire. He has not been unkind in any of his laughter, and, if anything, he has buoyed her in some strange, unexpected way.
This next laugh though is one she cannot help but to react to, and it feels like such a gift that he cannot see the smile that pulls itself across the dark of her quiet mouth. It is a sound so genuine that it pushes warmth into her chest, pushes back the dark that swells inside her like a forever night. For the first time since meeting him she finds herself wondering who he is and, more cautiously, if he plans to stay. There are very few bright, or stubborn, enough to break through the thunderclouds inside her chest. It would be a shame to find one and lose them again so quickly.
She glances over at him when he draws alongside her, and she does not balk at knowing he will see the remnants of her amusement, the mirror of his mirth drawn so carefully among the metallic golds and storm grays of her face. Perhaps it is his to see, his that he earned. But while his gaze remains fixed on her in a way that coaxes a shy heat to the surface of her skin, her gaze swings back to the path to watch their steps. He can see her mirth, but she is not ready for him to see that he has any kind of lingering effect on her.
Like rage. He says, and it is in her nature to be suspicious that he is deliberately picking things he thinks she would know intimately. His description commands her attention back, and those quiet eyes fall like stars across his face. “No,” she tells him simply, and there is something soft in the way her eyes wander over the armor of his face. “I imagined you would tell me it chafes.” She smiles then, something impossibly subtle that only barely upturns the corners of her mouth. “But your answer is good too.”
She is still considering what he said when they arrive at the shore with the waves that lap almost sleepily against the rocky sand. “Do you ever find relief from it?” Her gaze had moved to the ocean again, but now it swings back to watch him and there is a quiet furrow in the dark grey of her brow. “Do you even want to find relief from it?” She wonders suddenly if it is something so normal to him that he hardly notices it until someone asks about it. So instead she says, “Would you like to swim with me? The sharks are only a problem if you are the slowest one in the water.” This time when amusement shimmers across her face, she makes no effort to dampen it down.
When he laughs this time, she merely studies him in her quiet clearwater way, trying once again to decide what it is that drives him. Light like the sun? Certainly. Or perhaps more like a flame that she should be wary of being burned by. “Are you always so easily amused by strangers? Or am I particularly entertaining.” The question is light and inquisitive, and though there is a hint of steel in those impossibly clear eyes, there is no distinct ire. He has not been unkind in any of his laughter, and, if anything, he has buoyed her in some strange, unexpected way.
This next laugh though is one she cannot help but to react to, and it feels like such a gift that he cannot see the smile that pulls itself across the dark of her quiet mouth. It is a sound so genuine that it pushes warmth into her chest, pushes back the dark that swells inside her like a forever night. For the first time since meeting him she finds herself wondering who he is and, more cautiously, if he plans to stay. There are very few bright, or stubborn, enough to break through the thunderclouds inside her chest. It would be a shame to find one and lose them again so quickly.
She glances over at him when he draws alongside her, and she does not balk at knowing he will see the remnants of her amusement, the mirror of his mirth drawn so carefully among the metallic golds and storm grays of her face. Perhaps it is his to see, his that he earned. But while his gaze remains fixed on her in a way that coaxes a shy heat to the surface of her skin, her gaze swings back to the path to watch their steps. He can see her mirth, but she is not ready for him to see that he has any kind of lingering effect on her.
Like rage. He says, and it is in her nature to be suspicious that he is deliberately picking things he thinks she would know intimately. His description commands her attention back, and those quiet eyes fall like stars across his face. “No,” she tells him simply, and there is something soft in the way her eyes wander over the armor of his face. “I imagined you would tell me it chafes.” She smiles then, something impossibly subtle that only barely upturns the corners of her mouth. “But your answer is good too.”
She is still considering what he said when they arrive at the shore with the waves that lap almost sleepily against the rocky sand. “Do you ever find relief from it?” Her gaze had moved to the ocean again, but now it swings back to watch him and there is a quiet furrow in the dark grey of her brow. “Do you even want to find relief from it?” She wonders suddenly if it is something so normal to him that he hardly notices it until someone asks about it. So instead she says, “Would you like to swim with me? The sharks are only a problem if you are the slowest one in the water.” This time when amusement shimmers across her face, she makes no effort to dampen it down.
REVELRIE
it feels like falling, it feels like rain,
like losing my balance again and again