01-26-2022, 01:02 PM
Ryatah
WHEN I WAS SHIPWRECKED I THOUGHT OF YOU
IN THE CRACKS OF LIGHT I DREAMED OF YOU
Her reality is still a wavering thing, and it is worse when she is alone.
She has never done well alone, but for a different reason than now. Alone used to mean she was in danger of being bored; being bored was always a precursor to behaving recklessly, to seeking out something or someone that she shouldn’t. Her life is a patchwork of mistakes and events that could have been avoided if she had known how to ride out boredom instead of following the livewire that led to self-destruction, but of course she never had, and she went knowingly into the jaws of danger time and time again.
Had she been bored that day at the river, when she had come across Gale? The memories are murky now, blurred with things that she cannot confidently say if they are real or not real. Gale was not the kind of danger she usually sought out; he was a player in someone else’s game, but not hers. And yet somehow she had found herself within his crosshairs, for a reason that she still could not explain.
He had fractured a piece of her that no one had before, had broken a vital piece that she had not realized she needed. She is not sure if he devoured it along with her old heart or if she lost it in that strange void where time and space had no laws, but it’s gone, and she is adrift. The hole it leaves behind is where the darkness seeps through, smothering the cracks of light and toying with the filaments of sanity she is left with, until she is left questioning everything she sees and hears.
Yet no matter how much she hates being alone she knows she cannot cling to Atrox every hour of the day and night. For short periods of time she forces herself away from him, though she never strays from Hyaline. She stays well within the borders of the mountain kingdom, keeping mostly to herself, and in the quiet of solitude she tries to keep the darkness at bay.
When she hears someone approaching, she does not turn immediately—thinks that if she does not look she will not have to face the possibility of death and the void again, like a child thinking a nightmare isn’t real so long as they don’t open their eyes. His voice is not one that she recognizes, and instead of this feeding into her newfound timid side it instead appeals to the older part of her that cannot resist the tug of curiosity. She turns her head, the honey-glow of her halo highlighting the delicate shape of it, the light lending a warmth to a pair of impossibly dark eyes that take in the younger boy. “Hyaline,” she answers him, turning to fully face him as she does so, and the movement sends a cascade of stardust to pool on the ground. Her gaze sweeps across the jaguar markings, coming back to study the lines of his face to see if she finds anyone familiar there, and while there is something that tugs within her chest there is no accusation in her soft voice when she asks him, “Who are you?”
She has never done well alone, but for a different reason than now. Alone used to mean she was in danger of being bored; being bored was always a precursor to behaving recklessly, to seeking out something or someone that she shouldn’t. Her life is a patchwork of mistakes and events that could have been avoided if she had known how to ride out boredom instead of following the livewire that led to self-destruction, but of course she never had, and she went knowingly into the jaws of danger time and time again.
Had she been bored that day at the river, when she had come across Gale? The memories are murky now, blurred with things that she cannot confidently say if they are real or not real. Gale was not the kind of danger she usually sought out; he was a player in someone else’s game, but not hers. And yet somehow she had found herself within his crosshairs, for a reason that she still could not explain.
He had fractured a piece of her that no one had before, had broken a vital piece that she had not realized she needed. She is not sure if he devoured it along with her old heart or if she lost it in that strange void where time and space had no laws, but it’s gone, and she is adrift. The hole it leaves behind is where the darkness seeps through, smothering the cracks of light and toying with the filaments of sanity she is left with, until she is left questioning everything she sees and hears.
Yet no matter how much she hates being alone she knows she cannot cling to Atrox every hour of the day and night. For short periods of time she forces herself away from him, though she never strays from Hyaline. She stays well within the borders of the mountain kingdom, keeping mostly to herself, and in the quiet of solitude she tries to keep the darkness at bay.
When she hears someone approaching, she does not turn immediately—thinks that if she does not look she will not have to face the possibility of death and the void again, like a child thinking a nightmare isn’t real so long as they don’t open their eyes. His voice is not one that she recognizes, and instead of this feeding into her newfound timid side it instead appeals to the older part of her that cannot resist the tug of curiosity. She turns her head, the honey-glow of her halo highlighting the delicate shape of it, the light lending a warmth to a pair of impossibly dark eyes that take in the younger boy. “Hyaline,” she answers him, turning to fully face him as she does so, and the movement sends a cascade of stardust to pool on the ground. Her gaze sweeps across the jaguar markings, coming back to study the lines of his face to see if she finds anyone familiar there, and while there is something that tugs within her chest there is no accusation in her soft voice when she asks him, “Who are you?”
AND IT WAS REAL ENOUGH TO GET ME THROUGH —
BUT I SWEAR YOU WERE THERE
@Fyr