05-15-2021, 11:38 PM
She stays still, frozen like one of Leilan's ice sculptures, and the deadweight of his words crushes her. It can't be true. But she feels her heart leaps at the hope that they offer her, even as she stares at the heartless, pale lines of his bones, the white, seashell of his skull reaching out for her own. The feeling of his lips on her cheek might send her reeling if she weren't already far away, on another (dark) day with another dark stallion. This one was not simply black, though, not flesh and blood, but shadow over bone with eyes red and burning. She'd thought him one of her shadows, but his darkness had flinched away from her when she'd tested it.
And then, in a blink, he'd become a blackened skeleton, like bones left to char in dragonfire, and some madness had overtaken her that she never questioned it. She didn't search for the truth, she simply ran away. Running had never once served her, yet she falls back to it again and again. She fled the river's edge and found the forest, the lifeless forest, and she never thought to ask anyone else if they saw what she saw. It was insanity to do what Beryl had done, she could see it now.
He could be lying. Doubt bleeds into her thoughts, jolting her back. He could be lying, he could just be repeating memories from... from before. She remembers the taste of his blood and the way it had made the air sharp, mingling with the smells of sweat and the smokey scent of autumn.
She doesn't want to believe that he might be lying. That hope twists in her heart, threatening to turn sour.
shadow, the shadows whisper in their deadleaf voices, skin
She's been trusting her eyes all this time and ignoring everything else, ignoring touch and taste and the thrum of blood in her ears. She never even asked her shadows, though they swirl at her feet like fond hounds.
"I..." Her words break across her tongue, catching on sharp teeth slowly melting back to their usual shape.
"Can I? Would-- Would you mind?"
But she doesn't pause to explain. Instead, she pulls away once again, evaporating from his side with the fluid ease of a cat and the soft billowing of the forest's shadow reaches out in her wake. Cool tendrils catch up around the cream-colored shafts of his cannon bones until, at least to her lying eyes, they are black and dark, as they should be, until the face looking back at her is Cassian's, though the eyes are yellow. Not quite right.
There's no shine to his skin, this way. In that respect, he resembles the Bodach more than the laughing rogue she remembers, and noticing it reminds her of how easily she had forgotten sense at the riverside. Curled ears turn askew, troubled, and she feels the way they move in the feral sea of her pale mane now that she's paying attention, and she thinks that she has no response for him because it's rare anybody wants to know the intricacies of their own bones - more intimidating than intimate - so she says nothing. Heart in her throat and tongue pressed tight between her teeth to stop up the traitorous thoughts, she reaches out hesitantly across the gulf of her own foolishness.
And when she closes her eyes against the light, she can almost pretend everything is normal.
And then, in a blink, he'd become a blackened skeleton, like bones left to char in dragonfire, and some madness had overtaken her that she never questioned it. She didn't search for the truth, she simply ran away. Running had never once served her, yet she falls back to it again and again. She fled the river's edge and found the forest, the lifeless forest, and she never thought to ask anyone else if they saw what she saw. It was insanity to do what Beryl had done, she could see it now.
He could be lying. Doubt bleeds into her thoughts, jolting her back. He could be lying, he could just be repeating memories from... from before. She remembers the taste of his blood and the way it had made the air sharp, mingling with the smells of sweat and the smokey scent of autumn.
She doesn't want to believe that he might be lying. That hope twists in her heart, threatening to turn sour.
shadow, the shadows whisper in their deadleaf voices, skin
She's been trusting her eyes all this time and ignoring everything else, ignoring touch and taste and the thrum of blood in her ears. She never even asked her shadows, though they swirl at her feet like fond hounds.
"I..." Her words break across her tongue, catching on sharp teeth slowly melting back to their usual shape.
"Can I? Would-- Would you mind?"
But she doesn't pause to explain. Instead, she pulls away once again, evaporating from his side with the fluid ease of a cat and the soft billowing of the forest's shadow reaches out in her wake. Cool tendrils catch up around the cream-colored shafts of his cannon bones until, at least to her lying eyes, they are black and dark, as they should be, until the face looking back at her is Cassian's, though the eyes are yellow. Not quite right.
There's no shine to his skin, this way. In that respect, he resembles the Bodach more than the laughing rogue she remembers, and noticing it reminds her of how easily she had forgotten sense at the riverside. Curled ears turn askew, troubled, and she feels the way they move in the feral sea of her pale mane now that she's paying attention, and she thinks that she has no response for him because it's rare anybody wants to know the intricacies of their own bones - more intimidating than intimate - so she says nothing. Heart in her throat and tongue pressed tight between her teeth to stop up the traitorous thoughts, she reaches out hesitantly across the gulf of her own foolishness.
And when she closes her eyes against the light, she can almost pretend everything is normal.
@[Cassian]