M E S S A L I N A . //
“I can just be Ipomoea, to you.”
Would the flower-wreathed Emissary, with a voice as soft and soothing as Messalina’s finest silks, see the battle that raged beneath the dancer’s shadowed eyes? She prayed he wouldn’t—but then, she had never been well-versed in hiding emotion behind darkly hooded eyes, against close-lipped smiles. It was not like the way she spun gilded words like spider’s silk, as eloquently as breathing. This was different altogether, and unbearably, agonizingly suffocating.
Messalina wished so much that it could be easy. To take his words as they came, to dislodge his name from his rank as deftly as plucking a flower. Yet the utter opposite had been so ingrained into her very being, that it was akin to fighting for air in the midst of a furious sea. The roaring waves refused to let her surface, refused to release even a slender limb from its churning depths.
Why do things always turn out this way? Am I cursed to be a thorn to the heart towards everyone I shall ever meet? The scornful, fear-tinged gazes she’d received all her life had always pierced like small needles against her skin. Most days, they were little more than a tingling nuisance; yet some days, when the air was frigid and Mother was angry, they would manage to embed themselves deep inside her heart.
As Ipomoea turned his painted face away from her, a throbbing hurt gnashed its dull teeth at the edges of the girl’s chest. Angrily, she clenched her tongue against her cheek. I do not deserve to feel this way. Perhaps it is for the best that we part ways. They no longer had any more reason to stay. Orien himself had probably grown tired of their presence upon his marbled altar.
Yet as he turned to leave, as a farewell slipped itself heavily upon her lips, the Emissary spun back around in a rustle of petals. Warily, she caught his wavering gaze. “Would you, like to accompany me?"
What? Like ripples upon a mirrored-glass lake, Messalina stared for a moment too long into eyes of the lightest carmine. As soft and hesitant as Dawn’s shy sunrise. But it was enough. It would always be enough, to clear away the stormclouds that lingered always above the cold-skinned girl of winter.
@Ipomoea
notes: AHH THIS TOOK WAY TOO LONG ;n; but that should be a wrap! loved this thread so much <3
