[P] pretend I'm burning bright

[Elena]

Elena Daray

let us live like flowers
drenched in sunlight

P

ieces of her past life—of her past self—lay scattered.

In Beqanna there is a girl of crimson, with blue eyes like summer’s sky. She is beautiful and graceful and everything Elena is not. In Woodlands, there is a many of obsidian and alabaster who waits with heavy brown eyes for her to become the woman he always wanted the little girl he had known to be, he would be waiting for eternity. In Paraiso there is a guardian of brandished gold who holds his head proud and sees her mother and father when she looks down at her. In Windskeep there is a woman, an ageless woman who was infinitely kind and loving who could see none of her mistakes even when they shined so bright in Elena’s eyes. Somewhere—somewhere—there is a man with shadows who clutches to her heart in a way she cannot name.

And in Dusk, there are countless faces who Elena has promised to serve.

And here, on this beach, there is only herself, has always been only herself. It is here the remaining pieces of herself crumble away into sand.

Her heart cannot decide on an emotion when she looks at him. When her blue eyes (Elena would say blue like summer skies, he may say they are blue like the sea) meet his own. She looks behind him, across the beach and hopes against hope Ten is not nearby. That he is doing something else—avoiding her, perhaps—anything but close enough to overhear this.

When her gaze comes back to the horned boy in front of her, she just sighs.

“I don’t know what to do,” she chokes out. “I can’t seem to do anything right anymore.” She can taste his salt in her mouth when she talks. She cannot tell what emotions come from him, he hides it too well, it only prickles her skin like ocean mist. She can feel sorrow, betrayal, victory and then it evaporates into nothing. She knows then, that she is not the only one to have lost someone. There are many of them, scattered about Novus, like grains of sand trapped in her blonde hair that she will find in the morning, making her remember it was not a dream.

And into his shoulder, when she folds against him, she leaves grains of sand, like sea salt kisses against his skin. I hate promises too. And she smiles against him, a gesture he may feel against the strength of his shoulder, a gesture he may be numb to, but she smiles regardless. Elena always managed to burn like sunshine, even when the day was done, even when her own dark cloud hums with lightning over her. He pulls her closer and it causes the last of those tears to fall, one final one. She feels it tip from blue eyes, roll down that sharp cheek bone and down to her lips, where she can taste it on her tongue. It doesn't taste like her own, but equal parts him and her. It is bitter. It is sweet. It is sad. It is promising. It would be promising if they were capable of giving them to one another.

Elena moves away as the dragon’s wings snap in the night, but she is not frightened. He would not hurt her. She is not a lamb, she is not a fawn. He is no lion, he is no wolf. They are an ocean and a storm. Apart from one another, they grow, but always turning to face one another with a look of knowing, a look of understanding. “I will give you no promises,” she says and her heart remains uncrossed and she does not hope to die.  

And if a lie is easier than the truth—

“I love you,” she says staring up at him before she buries herself once more into his chest. “You are in my soul.” She holds him, lets him hold her, they look like lovers but they each know the truth, it is seen in the bruises of his eyes, it is seen in the splintering of Elena’s heart. “Your turn,” she says, refusing to leave the space she finds so close to the heart in his chest. She pretends she isn't pretending that his hear is someone else’s.

She cant remember how long she stands there, but it is long enough that her body weeps for the comfort of her court, for the familiarity of her cliffside, for the constant of healing. Wordlessly, she pulls away only looking at him when she has started to make the walk down the beach back to home. “I will ask you to promise me something someday, Torin—don’t you give it to me.”

Her promise to the man of shadows rattles around her ankles like shackles, but at least to one man, she is not a prisoner.

code by rallidae
picture by cannon
@Vercingtorix