06-28-2021, 02:42 PM
They had both leapt and fallen into different hellscapes. Him to the bottom of the ocean all armored in soft scales and writhing muscle beneath, a prisoner to a creature he had not known lived inside him. Her to the shallows as wings had erupted from pewter shoulders to keep her from being crushed against the rocks. They had both made their way to shores, wet and exhausted, Reverie dragging sodden wings that kept her from plummeting but had also tried to drown her. But it had been different shores that they found themselves on, opposite sides of the same cliff with only roiling water between that she was too exhausted to try and brave to find him.
She had stayed long after the storm passed and the sun set, long after constellations climbed into a sky that matched the markings on her delicate face. She had stayed and hoped and cried and wondered if her recklessness had cost a stranger his life.
But maybe he had never jumped at all.
She had gone first, after all, so she wouldn’t have seen if he made the leap too.
Eventually she had caught sight of him, though it was entire weeks after they had met and lost each other. She had almost gone to him too, but something, the kiss, held her back. She hadn’t forgotten the one she had pressed to the corner of a mouth so impossibly soft it might be velvet, hadn’t forgotten the way he had turned into her to kiss her back so lightly. There was nothing romantic in it, nothing of the fire she thought passion was supposed to have, but it was nice and it left her curiously wanting to try it again.
But those were feelings that scared her.
It was fall now, and with the days growing shorter and mildly cooler, she found herself with the faint stirrings of boredom blooming inside her chest. She hadn’t seen Obscene in a long while now, and though that was alright, she did miss him. It was an odd kind of realization, one that made her eyes a shade of blue like shy morning skies, made the line of her mouth something soft and unsure. She spent entire afternoons among the ocean of wildflowers, lying beneath the quiet sun and wondering why. Why him, why he had let her kiss him, where she had even gotten the idea to kiss him first. It is an easier daydream to slip into, these idle wonderings about a beautiful, arrogant stranger that often leave her smiling with quiet amusement - easier than the pain of thinking about her mother, her losses, this immovable ache inside her chest.
But maybe she wonders too much or for too long, because she finds herself on a path she hadn’t travelled in so many weeks, the one that guides her to that place overlooking the ocean below. She knows that it is because she wants to see him again, remembers how he had told her it was one of his favorite places to wait for the storms to come. But she pretends it is because of the storm she knows brews along the horizon. She can smell the rain and hear the distant rumbles.
He is there too, and it makes something warm in her chest, a kind of pleasure she cannot name or does not wish to. “I thought I told you this place was mine.” She says by way of greeting, though there is no venom in the secret way she half smiles and comes to stand beside him. Her eyes wander his face, but it is so brief and then she is looking out across the water to the flashes of light along the grey horizon, ignoring the way she hadn’t lingered too long on his lips, remembering. “Well I didn’t die.” She says, and then she does steal a glance at him, searching for something in his expression to tell her if she needs to put up walls, to protect this heart that wants to know him. “You must be terribly disappointed.”
There is a light behind her eyes now, some kind of quiet, unspoken joy that fills her like sunshine as she returns her gaze to the clouds. It is something soft and muted, a warmth like morning sunshine half-hidden by the haze of creeping fog. But for a moment it is there and it truly is just for him, because of him, because it is nice to have a friend. Then the wind catches beneath her wings and she lets them lift a little, allows the dark feathers to rustle and reveal the flashes of gold hidden underneath, the currents of static lightning that leap from one feather to the next. She wants to say something about them, explain how they had erupted from her shoulders mere seconds before she struck the water. But when she glances back at his face again she isn’t sure he even wants to know. So instead she says, “Did you jump too?”
She had stayed long after the storm passed and the sun set, long after constellations climbed into a sky that matched the markings on her delicate face. She had stayed and hoped and cried and wondered if her recklessness had cost a stranger his life.
But maybe he had never jumped at all.
She had gone first, after all, so she wouldn’t have seen if he made the leap too.
Eventually she had caught sight of him, though it was entire weeks after they had met and lost each other. She had almost gone to him too, but something, the kiss, held her back. She hadn’t forgotten the one she had pressed to the corner of a mouth so impossibly soft it might be velvet, hadn’t forgotten the way he had turned into her to kiss her back so lightly. There was nothing romantic in it, nothing of the fire she thought passion was supposed to have, but it was nice and it left her curiously wanting to try it again.
But those were feelings that scared her.
It was fall now, and with the days growing shorter and mildly cooler, she found herself with the faint stirrings of boredom blooming inside her chest. She hadn’t seen Obscene in a long while now, and though that was alright, she did miss him. It was an odd kind of realization, one that made her eyes a shade of blue like shy morning skies, made the line of her mouth something soft and unsure. She spent entire afternoons among the ocean of wildflowers, lying beneath the quiet sun and wondering why. Why him, why he had let her kiss him, where she had even gotten the idea to kiss him first. It is an easier daydream to slip into, these idle wonderings about a beautiful, arrogant stranger that often leave her smiling with quiet amusement - easier than the pain of thinking about her mother, her losses, this immovable ache inside her chest.
But maybe she wonders too much or for too long, because she finds herself on a path she hadn’t travelled in so many weeks, the one that guides her to that place overlooking the ocean below. She knows that it is because she wants to see him again, remembers how he had told her it was one of his favorite places to wait for the storms to come. But she pretends it is because of the storm she knows brews along the horizon. She can smell the rain and hear the distant rumbles.
He is there too, and it makes something warm in her chest, a kind of pleasure she cannot name or does not wish to. “I thought I told you this place was mine.” She says by way of greeting, though there is no venom in the secret way she half smiles and comes to stand beside him. Her eyes wander his face, but it is so brief and then she is looking out across the water to the flashes of light along the grey horizon, ignoring the way she hadn’t lingered too long on his lips, remembering. “Well I didn’t die.” She says, and then she does steal a glance at him, searching for something in his expression to tell her if she needs to put up walls, to protect this heart that wants to know him. “You must be terribly disappointed.”
There is a light behind her eyes now, some kind of quiet, unspoken joy that fills her like sunshine as she returns her gaze to the clouds. It is something soft and muted, a warmth like morning sunshine half-hidden by the haze of creeping fog. But for a moment it is there and it truly is just for him, because of him, because it is nice to have a friend. Then the wind catches beneath her wings and she lets them lift a little, allows the dark feathers to rustle and reveal the flashes of gold hidden underneath, the currents of static lightning that leap from one feather to the next. She wants to say something about them, explain how they had erupted from her shoulders mere seconds before she struck the water. But when she glances back at his face again she isn’t sure he even wants to know. So instead she says, “Did you jump too?”
REVELRIE
it feels like falling, it feels like rain,
like losing my balance again and again
@Obscene