[P] we could be beautiful without our war paint [fire]

[Elena]

Some girls are full of heartache and poetry

There exists, in her, a duality.

One is that girl who loved, who needed to see the hope, the good in the world, who thought she could bring light to it. (‘When the mists came, Alvaro wanted me to stay as did Marcelo. But I couldn’t Lilli. I couldn’t stay. Not when this is such a cruel world and I have a chance to bring light to it.’) She is the girl who stood amongst bonfires, ash strewn in her hair, dancing so recklessly with tilting hips and swaying shoulders, light feet. A girl who learned to smile and be soft, who loved with her entire being.

The other is a thing crafted by experiences, created with the last rise and fall of her mother’s chest, the look in her father’s eyes when he told her to run, that she would be okay. It has been made more vital by everything after – by love lost, by cruel words, by the anger and the jealousy she feels like punches to her gut.

Both of these beings exist within her and sometimes it feels like two hearts beating in discordance. Sometimes she feels split, torn in a way that cannot be repaired.
(But then, she has always hurt.)

And still, other times, like when he looks at her with eyes that bloom like spring, she remembers another girl, small and free, weaving flowers in manes. Elena, he says in a voice that warms her despite the chilled spring night.
She smiles.
The first real, beautiful smile she's given anyone in quite some time as he brushes against her cheek. And then they are running, running, running. There is a melody in the way in which they move. Elena might have stopped to dance.

And she does stop, turns to face him with a gentle rear upwards into the dirt. She stares at him for a moment, her heart racing in the quiet of the forest. She cannot help but feel like she has been here before. (And she has, in another forest, in another time, with another man.) “Have you ever felt like some place is haunted by ghosts?” She frowns and drops her gaze. “That’s ridiculous. I don’t know why I said that.” That blue-eyed gaze just watches for a moment, moves towards him until she has standing close.

Elena rests her head for a moment against him, he is warm, just as she knew he would be. “You smell like flowers and trees.” She tells him a voice just barely louder than a whisper, with a brow knit and furrowed and hidden away beneath tangles of blonde hair. What she does not say is what that means to her, which memories he coaxes to the surface of a heart that has felt so crumbled and confused the last few seasons. It brings with it a memory of flowers and laughter and sweet mornings still covered in dew, but a warm sun. She holds onto it like a prayer, like a promise clutched between trembling fingers. “It might be my favorite.”

She breaths him in again, comfortable beside him. It was so easy with Po, always so easy. “What are you thinking about?” She asks because she can feel him, everything about him, but she is no mind reader. And emotions for Elena, have become such a part of her, the feelings of others, but thoughts, now those are still coveted by the palomino. Prized gems she holds onto like a dragon and its gold. “And why are you thinking about it?”

those are the kind of girls who try to save wolves

instead of running from them