jamie
jamie
I CAN’T EXACTLY DESCRIBE HOW I FEEL
BUT IT’S NOT QUITE RIGHT
BUT IT’S NOT QUITE RIGHT
There are many things the shadow thing does not understand, will never understand.
Many things that magic will not help him understand.
He will never understand, for example, why it is the beautiful things he finds most crippling.
Why there had been a time when he could not bear to look at her, or at Beyza, why the sound of her laughter does not soothe him but sounds like screaming. Perhaps because he is such an ugly thing, Jamie, and he has such an ugly soul and such an ink-black heart. (If the heart exists at all, there is still no concrete evidence of this.)
She had not said that she did not know who he was, only asked if she needed to.
She had not lied and he does not feel the same stab of betrayal as she flashes that sly smile that he’d felt when he’d realized that Balto had lied. (He remembers, though, the memory slipping seamlessly to the forefront as she speaks and it occurs to him that she must know and he has been deceived.)
It occurs to him that he could punish her the same way he had punished Balto. In this instance, he could simply dissolve. Go home to Pangea and wait years to resurface, avoid her, possibly manipulate her memory of him so it was as if he had never existed at all. Or worse, make himself far more important than he had ever been. Make her pine for him until it killed her. Until she could not breathe him. Until he became her sea.
But he does not. And why doesn’t he?
He has no reason. There is no reason, not really. He does not punish her, but reaches for her with long fingers of fog instead. The fog thickens until it surrounds them both and he closes those freakish yellow eyes, draws in a rattling breath and exhales. He is still such a young magician but he is well-practiced in the art of teleportation. And when he opens his eyes again, they are plunged beneath the surface of the dark, dark sea.
It is not a conscious decision he makes but rather survival instinct that has him breathing underwater, a natural progression of the magic that courses through him.
Many things that magic will not help him understand.
He will never understand, for example, why it is the beautiful things he finds most crippling.
Why there had been a time when he could not bear to look at her, or at Beyza, why the sound of her laughter does not soothe him but sounds like screaming. Perhaps because he is such an ugly thing, Jamie, and he has such an ugly soul and such an ink-black heart. (If the heart exists at all, there is still no concrete evidence of this.)
She had not said that she did not know who he was, only asked if she needed to.
She had not lied and he does not feel the same stab of betrayal as she flashes that sly smile that he’d felt when he’d realized that Balto had lied. (He remembers, though, the memory slipping seamlessly to the forefront as she speaks and it occurs to him that she must know and he has been deceived.)
It occurs to him that he could punish her the same way he had punished Balto. In this instance, he could simply dissolve. Go home to Pangea and wait years to resurface, avoid her, possibly manipulate her memory of him so it was as if he had never existed at all. Or worse, make himself far more important than he had ever been. Make her pine for him until it killed her. Until she could not breathe him. Until he became her sea.
But he does not. And why doesn’t he?
He has no reason. There is no reason, not really. He does not punish her, but reaches for her with long fingers of fog instead. The fog thickens until it surrounds them both and he closes those freakish yellow eyes, draws in a rattling breath and exhales. He is still such a young magician but he is well-practiced in the art of teleportation. And when he opens his eyes again, they are plunged beneath the surface of the dark, dark sea.
It is not a conscious decision he makes but rather survival instinct that has him breathing underwater, a natural progression of the magic that courses through him.
AND IT LEAVES ME COLD
@[evia]