Oh, but I didn't bring anything for you.
Serea shakes her head, a smile drawing across her lips. “I did not expect you to. I simply thought you might like a place to keep your thoughts. Just don’t lose it. I have heard terrible stories of people’s secrets getting out when their journals have been found.”
Elena reaches for her, gratitude seeping into the gesture. The girl longs to not hug and yet desires the affection, the touch. Oh to be loved. It is a need, a hope. They embrace and the touch is torture and joy. When Elena steps away, Sereia breathes, a small sip of air. It still tastes warm and sweet as Elena’s body would. Sereia swallows down the hunger, the desire. Her lips fall into shadowy regret. But it is a fleeting expression. She has learned how to hide herself, disguise her wickedness, sorrow and self-loathing.
The air changes with Elena’s openness. He’s gone. She tastes pain in the air. It is static and sorrowful. It tastes like tears. Sereia watches the lines and the shadows that draw Elena’s grief upon the delicate contours of her face. A part of her longs for such love. The same part knows she will never allow herself to love. She is not worthy of it not with all the souls she has snuffed out with her unchecked, frenzied hunger.
“I am sorry for the loss of your friend,” Sereia whispers, her lips drawn down, bearing a part of Elena’s sorrow for her. Sereia does not let her eyes drift from Elena’s grief, she will not shy away from it. This is the other side to the story. The horses she has killed to feed her kelpie, they had family and friends and lovers. Sereia assumes the monk is dead. Not for a moment, not even in all her avid reading has she encountered a story that would lead her to first assume that it was a romance lost.
“Me too. I enjoyed our day in the library, even if the outcome was a sad one.” She reaches and touches her lips to the curve of Elena’s neck. Again it is fleeting, little more that a passing brush of lips. A flutter of a butterfly’s wings and then gone.
“I was searching for a good story to read. I long for other worlds to fall in love with.” because they are the only things I can allow myself to love.
Then low, a whisper, heavy with concern and compassion, “How are you fairing, Elena?”
@
an unspoken soliloquy of dreams
~ Ariana
