05-14-2022, 01:18 AM
Ryatah
WHEN I WAS SHIPWRECKED I THOUGHT OF YOU
IN THE CRACKS OF LIGHT I DREAMED OF YOU
She does not move when the panther nimbly leaps from the ledge, only follows his movement with a silent, placid stare. It is not until he draws the darkness around him that something inside of her both recoils and sharpens, her nerves suddenly alert and a cautious curiosity rising in her nearly black eyes.
The way he manipulates the night is so familiar that for a moment she wonders if Illum had shaped shadows into a panther-like form, but the stranger’s eyes chase that thought away. They are the signature feline yellow, brighter than the molten gold she had once been so familiar with, and she does not know if she is relieved or disappointed. She has not seen Illum in years, and while that self-destructive part of her whispers other things in the back of her mind she knows it is for the best.
She has found other ways to break herself, and did not need to drag him back into her gathering dark.
When the writhing shadows dissipate, though, it only causes new questions to rise. There are ghosts of both Heartfire and Illum etched into different parts of him, and his statement at having seen her before only adds to the confusion. “Ion,” she repeats his name thoughtfully, as if the answers might lay somewhere in those syllables, though of course they don’t. “I’m Ryatah,” she takes a step towards him, lets her eyes trace a path across him, taking inventory of all the things she finds familiar. There is the blue roan of his coat and the night-sky marking across his hip, and of course the way he had manipulated the shadows—all similarities that could not be denied.
But when she returns to his brown eyes—nothing like Heartfire’s vibrant blue or Illum’s smoldering gold—and recalls his previously shifted form it is enough to inspire doubt, though her stare never wavers from his face as she sorts her thoughts. “I don’t think we have met,” she says, not disagreeing with him, but also knowing that she would have surely remembered him had they formally crossed paths; perhaps not for the reason she is thinking, but at the very least because for all her flaws she had a way of remembering nearly everyone. “But you remind me of someone that I know.”
The way he manipulates the night is so familiar that for a moment she wonders if Illum had shaped shadows into a panther-like form, but the stranger’s eyes chase that thought away. They are the signature feline yellow, brighter than the molten gold she had once been so familiar with, and she does not know if she is relieved or disappointed. She has not seen Illum in years, and while that self-destructive part of her whispers other things in the back of her mind she knows it is for the best.
She has found other ways to break herself, and did not need to drag him back into her gathering dark.
When the writhing shadows dissipate, though, it only causes new questions to rise. There are ghosts of both Heartfire and Illum etched into different parts of him, and his statement at having seen her before only adds to the confusion. “Ion,” she repeats his name thoughtfully, as if the answers might lay somewhere in those syllables, though of course they don’t. “I’m Ryatah,” she takes a step towards him, lets her eyes trace a path across him, taking inventory of all the things she finds familiar. There is the blue roan of his coat and the night-sky marking across his hip, and of course the way he had manipulated the shadows—all similarities that could not be denied.
But when she returns to his brown eyes—nothing like Heartfire’s vibrant blue or Illum’s smoldering gold—and recalls his previously shifted form it is enough to inspire doubt, though her stare never wavers from his face as she sorts her thoughts. “I don’t think we have met,” she says, not disagreeing with him, but also knowing that she would have surely remembered him had they formally crossed paths; perhaps not for the reason she is thinking, but at the very least because for all her flaws she had a way of remembering nearly everyone. “But you remind me of someone that I know.”
AND IT WAS REAL ENOUGH TO GET ME THROUGH —
BUT I SWEAR YOU WERE THERE
@Ion