09-26-2021, 09:13 PM
“You don’t know me well enough to be sure of that.” There is a weight to her words that darkens the light in her mismatched eyes, a weight that hangs heavy in the corners of her frowning mouth. “I could be the kind of dark you hate, I could be what you despise.” She isn’t sure how it is that he stubbornly refuses to see what is in front of his very eyes. That she is shrouded in shadow that hadn’t been there before, this aura of gauzy dark that never leaves her anymore - and even if he had chosen to disregard that, there is still a black, crooked halo sitting lopsided over her ears. A pair of wings once molten gold and now a strange, burnished shade as though soot clings to the feathers even now. “As a girl I always wanted to be more like my mother. But now that I am grown I can see that I am more like my father.”
There is not a single ounce of accusation in her eyes when he turns his face to look at her, not a single ounce of anything but stubbornness and a growing sense of loyalty. And pain, pain because she can see the way this constant strife is carving holes inside his chest large enough for these vital pieces of himself to fall away through. “Maybe they aren’t who you need to come together with.” She tells him lightly, and this time her eyes are soft with a shared kind of pain as she imagines what it would feel like to have this kind of a rift between herself and her own sister, Radiance. “It sounds as though, for the moment, until they choose otherwise, they are now part of the evil that needs to be overcome.” She touches his shoulder lightly, offering a kind of support that feels unfamiliar to her, a kind of loyalty the goodness of his heart has won a thousand times over.
“I’m dangerous.” She says, and though she is arguing, her voice is something like a whisper when it slips past her dark mouth. “You underestimate me because I helped you.” Spared him, he had said, from the wrath of death. “But maybe I just knew somehow that I would need you later. That I would need you to ground me.” She is challenging him now, and though it comes softly, there is a new intensity in her gaze as she watches him. “I have never saved anyone but you, Nashua. If I am kind, it is only because you exist for me to be kind to.” A truth, and a lie, maybe. It’s true that she has only ever saved him, but he is also the only one she has ever had the opportunity to do so with. And likely now she cannot, not when the wounds she heals reappear on her own body. Nashua is the only one outside of her mother or her sister that she would ever be willing to sacrifice for in that way.
She meets his eyes, feels a kind of electricity in that gaze like there are sparks arcing inside her veins leaving her aching and on fire. “If it is a part of you then I will keep the madness at bay. I vow it.” She closes her eyes and steps forward to press her brow to his in promise, to feel the warmth of his blazed face against the dark of hers. “But I have only ever seen you use that part of yourself for goodness. So if there is madness inside your chest, I do not think it is yours to keep but rather the burdens of your siblings.” Her eyes open again, that gaze mismatched and steely as she pulls back a few inches to gaze at him. “Set it free, Nashua.”
There is not a single ounce of accusation in her eyes when he turns his face to look at her, not a single ounce of anything but stubbornness and a growing sense of loyalty. And pain, pain because she can see the way this constant strife is carving holes inside his chest large enough for these vital pieces of himself to fall away through. “Maybe they aren’t who you need to come together with.” She tells him lightly, and this time her eyes are soft with a shared kind of pain as she imagines what it would feel like to have this kind of a rift between herself and her own sister, Radiance. “It sounds as though, for the moment, until they choose otherwise, they are now part of the evil that needs to be overcome.” She touches his shoulder lightly, offering a kind of support that feels unfamiliar to her, a kind of loyalty the goodness of his heart has won a thousand times over.
“I’m dangerous.” She says, and though she is arguing, her voice is something like a whisper when it slips past her dark mouth. “You underestimate me because I helped you.” Spared him, he had said, from the wrath of death. “But maybe I just knew somehow that I would need you later. That I would need you to ground me.” She is challenging him now, and though it comes softly, there is a new intensity in her gaze as she watches him. “I have never saved anyone but you, Nashua. If I am kind, it is only because you exist for me to be kind to.” A truth, and a lie, maybe. It’s true that she has only ever saved him, but he is also the only one she has ever had the opportunity to do so with. And likely now she cannot, not when the wounds she heals reappear on her own body. Nashua is the only one outside of her mother or her sister that she would ever be willing to sacrifice for in that way.
She meets his eyes, feels a kind of electricity in that gaze like there are sparks arcing inside her veins leaving her aching and on fire. “If it is a part of you then I will keep the madness at bay. I vow it.” She closes her eyes and steps forward to press her brow to his in promise, to feel the warmth of his blazed face against the dark of hers. “But I have only ever seen you use that part of yourself for goodness. So if there is madness inside your chest, I do not think it is yours to keep but rather the burdens of your siblings.” Her eyes open again, that gaze mismatched and steely as she pulls back a few inches to gaze at him. “Set it free, Nashua.”
ILLUMINAE
we can't dream when we're awake,
or fall in love with a heart too strong to break
@Nashua