[P] in the blur of the stars [fall]

[Elena]

take this burden away from me
and bury it before it buries me

Michael had infected her thoughts since the first time they had met. Mysterious, thoughtful, sweet, Michael. He was hard not to think about. She had missed him the moment she had left, so the next day she had returned to the beach, stood in the water, then in the sand, and then on the dunes, thinking maybe she would spot him, but it was only sand and ocean and sky and sea birds. A lonely crab had wandered by and Elena had wondered if maybe he was waiting for someone too. Elena silently hoped he would find what he was looking for.

Blue and blue together once more. It makes her ache for Lilli because she realizes she has not thought about her cousin in some time. She is altogether suddenly so grateful for Michael. If he asked her to bring him a star from his favorite constellation, Elena would pick for him the brightest one.

She smiles, oh she smiles. “Michael,” she says, the name feeling right on her tongue. She allows herself a hint of laughter with his remark. “Do you ever use it to allow fair maidens and brave knights to climb up the highest of towers?” She asks, as the look in her eyes grows like fire and air. Elena has always been more than one element, for she burns to brightly to just be air, but she dances too lightly on cliff sides for fire alone.

He looks away from her, and she tries not to question why she feels the sudden urge to touch his cheek and face her once more. Elena cannot allow Michael to be sad, cannot allow for his face to crumble apart with sorrow. It could be because it makes her feel the agony of everything, or it could be because his smile lifts it all away.

She drinks again, until he turns back to her, a useless game of cause and effect. Fire grows in his eyes just as it does in hers and she wonders if he only feels the heat of it, or if he too is suddenly hit with a rush of air. Elena follows suit, taking the glass next to his that is offered, thinking she should slow down, but wanting to do anything but. “It’s a good thing, I’m a Medic then,” she says with a drink. A drink, a sip, a taste, a swig. “Well then,” she says, and she can blame the drink for the way her voice echoes with notes of fiddles and flutes. “Perhaps a dance can be your penance.” An atonement, baptism in music notes in place of holy water.

Elena should be terrified at how easy it is to follow him.

But she cant think of anything except the way the music carries her body as if it suddenly had wings and she loses herself for just a moment as a piccolo joins in. She feels like nothing more than summer sky and clouds and hopes and wishes (the ones we abandoned in childhood). The palomino moves her body, rhythm infecting her blood. She stops only when the music grows slower, everyone cheers and the dancers are rewarded a break. Elena is breathing hard. She laughs, a moment, before it is drowned in wine. She takes another sip, and she laughs again. Again, again. She bites her lip to make herself stop, but her face is still creased in a smile. “Have you ever been in love, Michael?” She asks him. The last of her drink is gone. “If you say no, I’ll know you’re lying. And if you say yes—” She pauses, she should consider her words, she shouldn't say them, but maybe as happy as she is, she’s still bitter. “Well, I’m sorry.” Because happy love stories are few and far between. Everyone loves one that ends in tragedy.

so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me

@Michael