She is quiet when he speaks, when he tells her they must be lucky to have her, quiet because she does not believe him. It did not seem like any kingdom would be lucky to have someone who just stood by, someone who had been too overwhelmed to react, someone who had fled the soot and ash rather than offer any help. But this man is kind, so kind, and she does not bother to voice these feelings again because she is certain of what his answer will be. Carefully, with her face turned from him for just a moment, she bleeds the guilt from her face so that he might never suspect the doubt that was eating a hole away at her heart. Her burdens did not have to be his.

“I’m afraid to let my pain just be.” She tells him quietly, turning her face back to him, those quiet eyes half-disappeared beneath the black tangles of her forelock. “I don’t want it to go too deep, I don’t want to drown in it.” She thinks of her parents, of the way father wore his pain like a porcupine wore its quills, and of her mother who spent every minute he was gone lying to herself that she did not need him anymore. She thinks of that pain, of how it shaped them, how it made them ugly. Malis too, but Ilka thought maybe she fought a little harder, hung on just a little better. Or maybe she just had fewer burdens, less weight to be crushed beneath. But they were all still the same, soaked in their pain- and the look in their eyes, in the shadows of their faces, it scared Ilka. “I don’t want to be like that.” She says quietly, and the sound of her voice surprises even herself as the words had been meant to go no further than the thoughts churning inside her head.

Her jaw clenches and her brow furrows even further at his next question, but her eyes remain soft and unsure against his face. “I wasn’t.” Is all she says at first, her head cocking subtly to the side as she considered something. “I met her once, and she seemed very kind. But I was new still.” A frown appears suddenly on her lips, warping the corners of her dark, delicate mouth. “If I’m being honest though,” and she found she could be nothing less with the warmth of his mouth pulling quiet truths through her ash and smoke skin, “I didn’t try to know anyone.” Her eyes unfocus from his face just a little as she considers something, considers why. “I think I was afraid to let myself get close to anyone. In case I didn’t stay.” The second part of her confession comes so quietly she isn’t even sure he’ll hear it at all.

Instead, with guilt trembling in the pit of her stomach, she crushes herself against the warm curve of his chest, pushes her mouth against the planes of his shoulder. “I should go back now.” She tells him and she doesn’t bother to hide the way her voice wavers with regret. Somehow this hurt too, leaving him. “I should stop hiding.” She closes her eyes and presses her cheek against his neck one last time before she pulls away and braces for the wave of cold air. “I don’t even know your name though,” she realizes before she turns to leave, her face imploringly soft, “but I’m Ilka.”

ILKA

makai x oksana