06-16-2025, 12:32 AM
with each love i cut loose i was never the same --
The stranger is like a specter in the corner of his vision, and he turns to look at her with jade-green eyes that stand out like jewels against the dark of his face. He is most often alone, and while he does not prefer it that way, it is what he knows best. Conversation did not always come easy to him, but thankfully his illusions were often an easy deflection from his own poor skills.
And as he expected—and hoped—it is his illusion that she comments on first.
“Thank you,” he tells her, his voice feeling rusted from disuse, but the gratitude is genuine all the same. “Unfortunately,” he begins, focusing his attention on a patch of wildflowers. They shimmer and fade, disappearing entirely—no wilted petals left behind, no earth disturbed, as if they had never been. “It isn’t real. But lovely nonetheless.”
Finding that he does not like the empty space, he brings the image of the flowers back, just as vivid as before. Satisfied, he looks back to her, his dark lips shifting into the barest of smiles. “My name is Deception.”
The stranger is like a specter in the corner of his vision, and he turns to look at her with jade-green eyes that stand out like jewels against the dark of his face. He is most often alone, and while he does not prefer it that way, it is what he knows best. Conversation did not always come easy to him, but thankfully his illusions were often an easy deflection from his own poor skills.
And as he expected—and hoped—it is his illusion that she comments on first.
“Thank you,” he tells her, his voice feeling rusted from disuse, but the gratitude is genuine all the same. “Unfortunately,” he begins, focusing his attention on a patch of wildflowers. They shimmer and fade, disappearing entirely—no wilted petals left behind, no earth disturbed, as if they had never been. “It isn’t real. But lovely nonetheless.”
Finding that he does not like the empty space, he brings the image of the flowers back, just as vivid as before. Satisfied, he looks back to her, his dark lips shifting into the barest of smiles. “My name is Deception.”
D E C E P T I O N