12-07-2025, 11:15 PM
who could ever leave me, darling,
but who could stay?
but who could stay?
Silence stretches between them, her heartbeat echoing around it, and she thinks he is going to ignore her presence entirely. Perhaps being pretty has spoiled her, because that was not an option she had considered, and her chest goes tight at the thought of it.
In her dream-world they never ignored her; they didn’t need to be in love with her, of course, but they did not ignore her.
She does not know why the idea of it—of being disliked or unwanted—sparks a desperation in her veins that she has not felt before, and she thinks, in that moment, that she would do anything to rid herself of the feeling.
So it’s almost a relief to see the ice winding towards her, to at least be acknowledged.
There is a moment where her heart gives a sudden lurch as the ice touches her skin, winding up her leg before dropping back down, and she sucks in a soft, startled breath at the coldness of it. She looks at him, dark brown eyes alight with curiosity and admiration. “You must be powerful, to be able to create ice,” she tells him, transfixed by his ice-blue eyes, by the nearly tangible darkness that radiates from him—a stark contrast to the naivety that emanates from her. After spending most of her young life locked in a tower of her own making, she was beginning to realize just how little she understood the world she had been watching.
“Oh,” she says when he points out the stardust, looking down to where it has settled in a thin layer on the ground. The way that he says it—almost indifferent—makes her wonder if he is annoyed by it, and what will she do if he is? She cannot turn it off, and she worries now that everyone (a scant few though it may be) she has met has also been put off by the golden dust that spilled from the tips of her wings. “I did. I’m sorry,” she apologizes, but she isn’t sure why. She does not owe him anything, this ice-cold stranger, but that same desperation is there again, and that innate desire to twist herself into something that he would find tolerable.
“My name is Empyreal,” she says this as if giving him her name will somehow keep him here, like it is a thread to connect the two of them. She steps towards him, just once, her head tilted just slightly to meet his gaze when she asks him softly, hesitantly, as if she is already prepared for him to reject her in some way, “what’s yours?”
In her dream-world they never ignored her; they didn’t need to be in love with her, of course, but they did not ignore her.
She does not know why the idea of it—of being disliked or unwanted—sparks a desperation in her veins that she has not felt before, and she thinks, in that moment, that she would do anything to rid herself of the feeling.
So it’s almost a relief to see the ice winding towards her, to at least be acknowledged.
There is a moment where her heart gives a sudden lurch as the ice touches her skin, winding up her leg before dropping back down, and she sucks in a soft, startled breath at the coldness of it. She looks at him, dark brown eyes alight with curiosity and admiration. “You must be powerful, to be able to create ice,” she tells him, transfixed by his ice-blue eyes, by the nearly tangible darkness that radiates from him—a stark contrast to the naivety that emanates from her. After spending most of her young life locked in a tower of her own making, she was beginning to realize just how little she understood the world she had been watching.
“Oh,” she says when he points out the stardust, looking down to where it has settled in a thin layer on the ground. The way that he says it—almost indifferent—makes her wonder if he is annoyed by it, and what will she do if he is? She cannot turn it off, and she worries now that everyone (a scant few though it may be) she has met has also been put off by the golden dust that spilled from the tips of her wings. “I did. I’m sorry,” she apologizes, but she isn’t sure why. She does not owe him anything, this ice-cold stranger, but that same desperation is there again, and that innate desire to twist herself into something that he would find tolerable.
“My name is Empyreal,” she says this as if giving him her name will somehow keep him here, like it is a thread to connect the two of them. She steps towards him, just once, her head tilted just slightly to meet his gaze when she asks him softly, hesitantly, as if she is already prepared for him to reject her in some way, “what’s yours?”
Empyreal
@bael