She does not expect anyone to approach her, and when she turns her antlered head to take him in, she cannot shield the surprise from her face. Her eyes are instantly drawn to the golden rivulets that run down his cheeks, gathering in a gilded pool at his feet, glittering against the blades of grass. He radiates melancholy, and she wonders if that is what seeps from his eyes. She is unfamiliar with such emotions; she wonders if it takes a certain kind of sadness to turn tears into gold.
Her curious nature makes her want to reach out and touch it, to see if it feels like tears or something else, but she refrains.
He is silent, and she is too, as she stares at him in a way that suggests she is trying to dissect him -- still hung up on the golden tears. Her eyes are too bright against her dark face, lending a false sense of amiability, despite how reserved she had actually become, but her lips reflexively lift into a dim smile when he speaks.
“Aislyn,” she returns his introduction with one of her own, and for the first time, she seems to notice the thorns that crown his head. She wants to ask for his story, but she decides not to be that forward. “Does it ever stop?” Is what she asks instead, referring to the streaks of gold. She realizes that maybe that was an impolite question, too, but she does not offer an apology to soften it.
Aislyn
she set fire to all the things that held her back
and from the ashes she stepped into who she always was