and bury it before it buries me
Love is a conqueror. It conquers your common sense, leaving it in tattered scarps. Love is a dictator, a force screaming out what you should do, say, feel, while you are left with no choice in the matter. Love is not something to be worshipped or prized. Not when a heart is so fickle.
Time turns to stone, hard and immobile, and it closes so tightly around her that for several long moments she cannot breathe. She feels paralyzed by the impossibility before her, by the treacherous heat of hope that flares beneath her skin and fills her stomach with a strange, foreign warmth. There is something else there, too, something she has noticed for some time. Affection. She feels it too often and for too many, so desperately craving their love, their touch, their attention. Elena doesn't know why she feels this, this need to touch. She wants to bury herself beneath his skin and leave all her worries behind. It didn't matter that he was still a stranger, that he was perfectly wrong for her, if anything she slinks closer to him. There is a feeling of want and it churns inside her.
She finds these fleeting feelings, these distant thoughts, but they are gone before she can hold onto them like butterflies to another flower. And Elena is left as a confused little girl with an empty butterfly net. Her body yields into the pressure of his against hers. She inhaled and his scent came with it, something heady and chilled, and dark, all just part of what made him, him. There is a pressure in her chest that does not ease, does not quiet, only grows, consuming all of her as she turns toward him, hungry. She shouldn't want him here, and she did. Elena is still that stubborn child.
Elena has always been insistent. She had a stubborn streak a mile wide (“that child is rebellious,” Rishiri had said, “Elena is a bit resistant towards her lessons,” said Cherish. But, Beylani had not had the heart to deny her precious daughter anything, and therefore labeled it as stubborn.) So often Elena will stick to her resolve and her mother would finally just sigh, the sign that Elena had been waiting for that she had worn her pale mother down. (The sigh was always followed quickly by a kiss to the forehead and a returned kiss to the cheek.)
That insistent nature is seen in the moment she presses her chest closer to his and holds him tighter like he would slip away. Elena for so long has looked for the touch of her parents in the arms of men, and she has turned up empty handed with nothing but the cold, only to remind her of just how foolish she had been.
There are alarm bells ringing, warning lights flashing, but they fall upon blind eyes and deaf ears as they hold each other. She feels suspended in the moment, trapped between each breath and each pulse of her heart as it stammers ineloquently against her chest.
Can Tenebrae hear it?
Hold me, she says inside her head.
They have ghosts hidden in their eyes, both of them, they may be buried deep, beneath layers of laughter, or bravery, or happiness, or duty. But they are there all the same, placed there delicately, but deliberately to shine back out. It is a look that many do not know, are unfamiliar with, but as one orphan looks to another, the gaze is familiar—hauntingly so. But even despite this, the way those ghosts peer out of his own eyes into hers, there is solace. Her heart flinches, a deep and penetrating hurt.
How were they taken?
He asks.
She wishes he hadn’t.
“Death,” she answers almost bitterly, the venom on her tongue sounds foreign as if she were speaking in tongues. “Illness, murder, it doesn't matter anymore,” she says. None of it was right, none of it mattered anymore because what was done is done. Elena has not forgiven the world for taking them, and nor has she forgot, she has simply accepted. She has reached that final stage of grief, but there she remains and there she will stay. Forgiveness is too hard and to forget is too painful.
The golden girl can still taste his skin on her lips even after she pulls away. It was like shadow, like dirt, like sea air, and desire. He presses his brow into hers once more and she closes glacier blue eyes to steady herself. She wants to let loose, cave into her desires, her wants, her temptations, but— blue eyes open like clouds clearing. What would she change? She can taste his breath on her tongue as air is pulled into her lungs. It tastes like danger and darkness, and Elena greedily snatches it all and it rolls precariously on her tongue like a forbidden kiss. The question reminds her of another who had asked her something similar, in a secret meadow, with clouds passing overhead and the echo of a waterfall in an ancient valley. ‘Would you change anything that has happened, Elena? Would you do something over?’ She smiles, then, because after all these years her answer remains the same. “I don't think I would change anything,” she says solemnly, it is a hard answer to believe it, even Elena is shocked as it falls from her lips. “But I’d give myself one more night beside a lake, searching for the evening’s first star,” she says, vague, but when she looks to the Denocte man she knows he will understand. A chance to spend one night with parents that are long go. One more night.
But there isn't enough magic in the world to do that.
Elena has tried.
Her eyes were not always such a pretty blue.
“It is not your fault,” she says, it is instinctive. Elena has always been a healer, it has always been her talent, and when she cannot find a salve for wounds, she uses that golden tongue as a replacement. She pulls away once more to look at him. “Who took care of you?” She dares to ask. What did he do? Was he all alone? Thinking of this is far cold than any shadow, any winter wind. “I can take care of you now.” A plea because she hurts and she cannot let another ail because in the end, Elena is selfish in the way in which she needs to be needed. Those blue eyes search his face for any emotion, any light that can emerge from the shadows and then she folds into him like a paper heart.
Time turns to stone, hard and immobile, and it closes so tightly around her that for several long moments she cannot breathe. She feels paralyzed by the impossibility before her, by the treacherous heat of hope that flares beneath her skin and fills her stomach with a strange, foreign warmth. There is something else there, too, something she has noticed for some time. Affection. She feels it too often and for too many, so desperately craving their love, their touch, their attention. Elena doesn't know why she feels this, this need to touch. She wants to bury herself beneath his skin and leave all her worries behind. It didn't matter that he was still a stranger, that he was perfectly wrong for her, if anything she slinks closer to him. There is a feeling of want and it churns inside her.
She finds these fleeting feelings, these distant thoughts, but they are gone before she can hold onto them like butterflies to another flower. And Elena is left as a confused little girl with an empty butterfly net. Her body yields into the pressure of his against hers. She inhaled and his scent came with it, something heady and chilled, and dark, all just part of what made him, him. There is a pressure in her chest that does not ease, does not quiet, only grows, consuming all of her as she turns toward him, hungry. She shouldn't want him here, and she did. Elena is still that stubborn child.
Elena has always been insistent. She had a stubborn streak a mile wide (“that child is rebellious,” Rishiri had said, “Elena is a bit resistant towards her lessons,” said Cherish. But, Beylani had not had the heart to deny her precious daughter anything, and therefore labeled it as stubborn.) So often Elena will stick to her resolve and her mother would finally just sigh, the sign that Elena had been waiting for that she had worn her pale mother down. (The sigh was always followed quickly by a kiss to the forehead and a returned kiss to the cheek.)
That insistent nature is seen in the moment she presses her chest closer to his and holds him tighter like he would slip away. Elena for so long has looked for the touch of her parents in the arms of men, and she has turned up empty handed with nothing but the cold, only to remind her of just how foolish she had been.
There are alarm bells ringing, warning lights flashing, but they fall upon blind eyes and deaf ears as they hold each other. She feels suspended in the moment, trapped between each breath and each pulse of her heart as it stammers ineloquently against her chest.
Can Tenebrae hear it?
Hold me, she says inside her head.
They have ghosts hidden in their eyes, both of them, they may be buried deep, beneath layers of laughter, or bravery, or happiness, or duty. But they are there all the same, placed there delicately, but deliberately to shine back out. It is a look that many do not know, are unfamiliar with, but as one orphan looks to another, the gaze is familiar—hauntingly so. But even despite this, the way those ghosts peer out of his own eyes into hers, there is solace. Her heart flinches, a deep and penetrating hurt.
How were they taken?
He asks.
She wishes he hadn’t.
“Death,” she answers almost bitterly, the venom on her tongue sounds foreign as if she were speaking in tongues. “Illness, murder, it doesn't matter anymore,” she says. None of it was right, none of it mattered anymore because what was done is done. Elena has not forgiven the world for taking them, and nor has she forgot, she has simply accepted. She has reached that final stage of grief, but there she remains and there she will stay. Forgiveness is too hard and to forget is too painful.
The golden girl can still taste his skin on her lips even after she pulls away. It was like shadow, like dirt, like sea air, and desire. He presses his brow into hers once more and she closes glacier blue eyes to steady herself. She wants to let loose, cave into her desires, her wants, her temptations, but— blue eyes open like clouds clearing. What would she change? She can taste his breath on her tongue as air is pulled into her lungs. It tastes like danger and darkness, and Elena greedily snatches it all and it rolls precariously on her tongue like a forbidden kiss. The question reminds her of another who had asked her something similar, in a secret meadow, with clouds passing overhead and the echo of a waterfall in an ancient valley. ‘Would you change anything that has happened, Elena? Would you do something over?’ She smiles, then, because after all these years her answer remains the same. “I don't think I would change anything,” she says solemnly, it is a hard answer to believe it, even Elena is shocked as it falls from her lips. “But I’d give myself one more night beside a lake, searching for the evening’s first star,” she says, vague, but when she looks to the Denocte man she knows he will understand. A chance to spend one night with parents that are long go. One more night.
But there isn't enough magic in the world to do that.
Elena has tried.
Her eyes were not always such a pretty blue.
“It is not your fault,” she says, it is instinctive. Elena has always been a healer, it has always been her talent, and when she cannot find a salve for wounds, she uses that golden tongue as a replacement. She pulls away once more to look at him. “Who took care of you?” She dares to ask. What did he do? Was he all alone? Thinking of this is far cold than any shadow, any winter wind. “I can take care of you now.” A plea because she hurts and she cannot let another ail because in the end, Elena is selfish in the way in which she needs to be needed. Those blue eyes search his face for any emotion, any light that can emerge from the shadows and then she folds into him like a paper heart.
so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me
@Tenebrae (sorry for the novel!)
![[Image: ddvotwe-59302ba6-6a81-47bf-9846-30c5a5db...0iFb4PvyXE]](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/8026a53b-dc57-41ab-b574-9f8a8fe57ce4/ddvotwe-59302ba6-6a81-47bf-9846-30c5a5db0780.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzgwMjZhNTNiLWRjNTctNDFhYi1iNTc0LTlmOGE4ZmU1N2NlNFwvZGR2b3R3ZS01OTMwMmJhNi02YTgxLTQ3YmYtOTg0Ni0zMGM1YTVkYjA3ODAucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.ujCJH7FAbsQhfZlQniMmEd_vw-VmvaTDn0iFb4PvyXE)
let's light this house on fire
we'll dance in the warmth of its blaze
pixel made by the amazing star
