[P] she burns [autumn]

[Elena]

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

“Elena,” her father had comforted her as she snuggled against him, afraid in the dark. “You have nothing to fear from the shadows. It is they that should fear you.” And Elena had stared up at him with awe. “They do not survive in the light, and you, are the brightest light I have known.” He had looked over his shoulder then, to a pale woman with flowers woven in her hair by a golden daughter. “Just like your mother.” He was right. Elena did not have anything to fear from the shadows, and she had no reason to be afraid. Her father spent so much time telling her not to fear the shadows though, that he had forgotten to tell her not to fall in love with one.

A white sock on a golden leg steps forward and that red cloak rustles slightly at her movement. So much goes on behind those blue eyes, those too blue eyes. She whispers her secret, perhaps her truth into his ear. Her voice is pretty, all fog and silver bells. And maybe her father should have told her not whisper things into strange boy’s ears for pretty flowers to put in her hair.

There is a moment that hangs between them, that neither move, she just keeps looking at him through those blue eyes of hers. She closes them, then she opens her eyes again, still luminous, always luminous – there is too much light trapped inside her, too much bright and it must bleed from somewhere –  and they settle quietly against his dark face.

What does it feel like?

Her memories bubble at unexpected times. Like now. She is only 6 months old again. ‘I love him, mama.’ She said flinging her body around in tight turns, her feet skipping. ‘It’s called puppy love,’ her mother chides her. ‘No, it is real love and he loves.’ A soldier’s son. A soldier’s son that let her weave daises in his hair and tuck a rose behind his ear. He brought her pretty stones he found, and pointed out butterflies that she was too distracted to notice. They played tag, hide and go seek, they ate sweets and told each other their deepest, most sacred secrets.

And then, at the end of summer, his father was stationed elsewhere, and he had to go. Elena understood, and then she didn’t. Her mother comforted her, held her, but Elena didn't cry.

“It feels like—you know everything and nothing, all at the same time,” she admits. And it was true. She could tell you the exact curve of his cheek, could tell you the notes that sing in his voice, but she could never explain the feeling that erupts into her bones when he touches her, could never tell how something inside her both grows and dies, when he looks at her.

She rolls a delicate shoulder. Blue eyes blink away a growing concentration on Dune’ dark face. Elena laughs. “I cant give away all my secrets,” she says. “Remember why you love someone, and at the heart of it all, it wont be much difference between you and I.” She smiles much too sweetly at him, honey and sugar. “Do I get a flower now?”

And then suddenly she feels it in the back of her mind, it comes the same way it always does, like a memory she always has known, but is just recalling it either for the first or hundredth time, she can never tell. She gasps and pulls her head away slightly. “You,” she whispers, her voice small. No matter how gentle she tries to be, she cannot keep a small sense of accusation from her voice. She wouldn't be so nervous in this moment if she had never known Orani, if she had never known what that girl was. If she had not met someone just like him before. “You’re a dream walker.”

so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me

@Dune