[FTB] I look at her and light goes all through me

[Elena]

take this burden away from me
and bury it before it buries me

She is at home in the curve of his dark body, content against the heat of his skin and beside the ripple of hard muscle. In the dark, with her face tucked against the warmth of his arching neck, at once the knot in her chest eases so that she can breathe again. Her legs feel broken beneath her – too small, too brittle, too tired to hold her up. She could think about how she shouldn’t be here, she could think about what this will mean for her tomorrow, what it will mean for him tomorrow. She could imagine how much harder this will be when the shadows cant hide their sins. She could think about a lot of things. It is too easy to instead be wrapped up in the way that he holds her, in the way that his scent covers her like starlight – like warm lanterns and lake-water, cleaner than cold air.

Remember me.

She wants to press into him. She wants to lose herself in his touch. She wants to forget everything but the way it feels when he is wrapped around her, the way that he causes her mind to go numb, the pain of everything else to slip to the wayside. It’s not fair, the way that he does this to her. The way that his mere presence can unravel her, picking apart her threads until she is laid bare before him. She has no defenses anymore, she has no way to pull back pieces of herself, no way to shield herself from the destruction.

She is utterly and completely vulnerable before him—

and it is terrifying.

But the way his lips skim over her, the way his body melts around her, makes it slightly less so. She melts into it, taking several steadying breaths, the static of her thoughts gently buzzing from  his kisses. Another kiss and it strikes her light lightning, intense and bright. Her lips are gentle and imploring, less urgent and more reserved when they move to trace the lines of his face, when they bury kisses in the deepest hollows and a soft smile against his cheek. Her lips feel wrong every time they are not on him. He is like a shooting star, brief and temporary, and she is desperate to memorize him. In this moment, she only existed because of him. And wherever he touched her became fire, the rest of her was only smoke. Moonlight plays across her face, her eyes nearly drifting shut.

The stars bleed through black in the night sky. She has forgotten her stars, has forgotten the memories they invoke. They stand there silently, but they are ever watching, and should they ever be asked about this night, they will remember it. Although, whether this secret is told or remains quiet on bright lips remains a question.

She is trusting in her dance, she cannot move away from him, only towards him with every step as breath clouds like heat over her cheek on golden skin that already burns fever-bright. A part of her, a part of her heart, walks outside her body and wraps itself around his own. And there it would stay forever. She promises and she paints the promise against his skin with that delicate smile. And she cant control her heart beat anymore and so she lets it run wild, she wonders why she ever tried to restrain it. “I love you.” And with those three syllables, Elena hands her heart, her soul, herself, all to him. “All night,” she repeats after him, an echo of his words. “Then let the morning never come.”

Elena has been protected by her family, she has been adored by a man, she has been hunted by a monster, and she has been stolen like an object.

And she has been loved by a monk.
By shadows.
By Tenebrae.

Then, she laughs, and it sounds like sunshine from the clouds, as she looks up at him with blue eyes. What’s the harm? She had once asked him, had once told him they were only strangers. “This night,” she says as they dance. This night, just like it had been another night, a night they meet dancing, but in the glow of a bonfire rather than lanterns and love and wishes. “Is far too beautiful to sit idly by.”

so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me

@Tenebrae <3
Elliana!! <3 <3