I lost my kingdom to settle for less
Now I'm spinning around in a paper bag dress
Wondering if this is as good as it gets?
I traded my crown for a beat in my chest
Now I'm spinning around in a paper bag dress
Wondering if this is as good as it gets?
I traded my crown for a beat in my chest
You should just burn it to the ground.
The thought came unbidden, and Israfel halted in her tracks in surprise. A deep, shuddering breath left her lips as vermilion eyes, shining in the evening light like bleeding rubies, scanned the rising canopy of trees that spread out around her. The earthy smell of trees, dirt, and vegetation mixed with soil met her nostrils and she breathed in deep, letting the scent remind her senses that this very forest was alive… Tall, blooming trees stretched upwards towards the sky, reaching out like hands desperate to be saved from drowning, and the Sun Daughter felt her breath still in her throat.
This place did not hold the same warmth and familiarity that it once did. Israfel had visited the Viride a number of times, and each one held a special, tender place in her heart. Now? Now, vast and wide and weaving as the paths of the forest floor were, Israfel found this beautiful place empty and void of everything she had enjoyed about it.
The sounds of surrounding wildlife fell on deaf ears, their chirps and trills meaning nothing. The evening light peeking through the canopy intertwined with the lurking shadows, dancing to a melody that only they could hear, but its beauty was lost on her.
This place was damned, and Israfel hated it.
He still wasn’t here. There was a chance that he would never be here, and one of these days she just needed to accept that. Yet today wasn’t that day.
The godly blood in her body ran hot, practically urging her to summon her flames and catch the nearest copse of brush and undergrowth on fire. How very easy it would be to send this entire forest up in flames until there was nothing but ashes left in its wake, but she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Not yet.
“... Fuck you,” she muttered darkly to herself, finally allowing the breath to escape her lungs and the tension to release from her shoulders, her body seeming to sag forward as she slowly began to pick her path through the forest, weaving around trees with predatorial grace, “Why the fuck am I back here? It’s not like you care. It’s not like you’re even here anymore. No one knows where the fuck you went, you son of a bitch.”
Bitterness coated her tongue like ash, terrible to the taste and hard to swallow. Who knew she had been so attached to him? Israfel sure as hell didn’t, but wasn’t it a pity that she had realized it far too late. Oh, if only Marisol or Theodosia could see her now, pining over a man who had never really belonged to her in the first place. Pitiful.
Gritting her teeth together so tight that her jaw cracked, the Sun Daughter pressed on through the woods, drowning herself in the depths of the shadows that coated the woodland floors. For a little while longer she would remain, skulking around the shadows despite standing out like a flaming beacon in the darkness. She wouldn’t leave, not yet. Not until she was satisfied.
A sardonic grin crossed Israfel’s pale-pink lips and she chuckled, cold and dangerous. A pity she could never be satisfied.
