and i must pour forth a river of words
or i shall suffocate.
or i shall suffocate.
T
he sun is beginning to set. Maret can see the longer shadows it casts on the ground, the way the fireflies grow brighter, brighter, brighter around them. They make a halo of golden light on her brow, so that when Maret tilts her eyes up the brightness of it s all that she sees.It is right, she thinks.
If there is a part of her soul that is stirring at all of the light, she does not feel it. If there is a little bit of her father’s sunlit magic trapped in her veins it is lost in the dance, in the music, in the rushed beating of her heart. The reflections are following her, the ice is floating like bracelets at her heels instead of shackles, whispering like stories that have been waiting to be scribed.
Later, she will. Later, she will sit herself beside her window (the one against which the maple tree taps) and write until it hurts. She will write until the only magic she knows flows out of her like acid-water, burning her along the way.
She will write, and then she will leave.
But as the sun sets she smiles at the girl, and echoes her when she says, “thank you for the dance, Elena.” The hug they share is fleeting, but she will remember the warmth of her skin (and the gold — always, she will remember the gold of it.)
And then with the fireflies still dancing in her mind long after they have departed from her skin, she turns from the river. She knows she should return back to the castle, that her parents will be looking for her as the night falls —
but instead she lets the forest consume her as she steps into it.
{ @Elena "speaks" notes: <3 }
