12-07-2025, 03:35 PM
— i would rather learn what it feels like to burn than feel nothing at all —
There is another tremble along her spine when his shoulder brushes against hers, a faultline threatening to lose its hold. But whatever had shifted in her rights itself before she can fully lose control of it, subconsciously fortifying the barrier she kept between herself and the rest of the world.
He tells her that his shadows came later, and she tries again to quell the jealousy that flares at her core. He wielded it so easily, and wore those shadows like a second skin. It didn’t appear to be anything like her own flames, the ones that appeared one day and simply consumed her.
“No,” she begins, and for a moment the bitterness creeps back into her voice. It’s there again, that seemingly innate need to add fuel to her own fire, to watch this implode at her own hand. But beneath the fire her skin still remembers what it had felt like to be touched, and she forces herself to look at him—again resembling a flame rather than a shadow—and for once she does not let herself cave into the need. “I was born normal. Entirely normal.” There is the smallest of frowns at her brow, though the flickering sparks of her forelock hides it, except for the way it seems to shadow her eyes. Magic had not run rampant the way it did now, and so it was not at all strange that she had been born an unassuming bay, with nothing inherited from her serpentine father. “It started first with my skin. It looked the same, but I burned anyone that touched me.”
She can’t even remember when the fire had come.
She isn’t even sure if the fire had found her, or if she had created it—a physical manifestation of the anger she could no longer stifle. But the day that they had erupted across her body it had felt like losing a battle she had not wanted to acknowledge she had been fighting, and the hopelessness left in the ashes' wake was almost worse than the bright-hot rage she had been living with for so long.
There is a small, rueful smile on her lips when she looks at him. “And I have been burning ever since.”
He tells her that his shadows came later, and she tries again to quell the jealousy that flares at her core. He wielded it so easily, and wore those shadows like a second skin. It didn’t appear to be anything like her own flames, the ones that appeared one day and simply consumed her.
“No,” she begins, and for a moment the bitterness creeps back into her voice. It’s there again, that seemingly innate need to add fuel to her own fire, to watch this implode at her own hand. But beneath the fire her skin still remembers what it had felt like to be touched, and she forces herself to look at him—again resembling a flame rather than a shadow—and for once she does not let herself cave into the need. “I was born normal. Entirely normal.” There is the smallest of frowns at her brow, though the flickering sparks of her forelock hides it, except for the way it seems to shadow her eyes. Magic had not run rampant the way it did now, and so it was not at all strange that she had been born an unassuming bay, with nothing inherited from her serpentine father. “It started first with my skin. It looked the same, but I burned anyone that touched me.”
She can’t even remember when the fire had come.
She isn’t even sure if the fire had found her, or if she had created it—a physical manifestation of the anger she could no longer stifle. But the day that they had erupted across her body it had felt like losing a battle she had not wanted to acknowledge she had been fighting, and the hopelessness left in the ashes' wake was almost worse than the bright-hot rage she had been living with for so long.
There is a small, rueful smile on her lips when she looks at him. “And I have been burning ever since.”
Brinly
@Fireheart