[private] a sunrise is born, nazghul

[liesma]

liesma

She does not glow the same in the daylight.
So she goes chasing the darkness, where she can find her glow again.
 
She abandons the meadow for the shadows in the forest, just barely escaping from beneath the nearly unbearable weight of her father’s watchful eye.
 
(Does her father know that his sleep is plagued by nightmares? She stays up and watches him sometimes. He is so restless in the night that she tries to pull the stars down around him, tries to wrap them around his shoulders, tries to force them to lend him some comfort.)
 
She is old enough that she should not have to pretend, she thinks. She should not have to sneak. She is old enough that she should have some freedom. But her father is such a serious man, somber, intense. So protective sometimes that it feels like they’re both fighting for breath. 
 
(He could easily go running after her now, as she flees the meadow and disappears into the forest. Perhaps it’s her mother that talks him out of following after her. Perhaps he only makes a show of being protective. Perhaps he only wants her to think twice before she goes.)
 
But she is a thing meant to glow. She is a thing of the night. She cannot stand the sunlight, she never could. So she plunges into the relative darkness of the forest, casting herself into the crushing shadows. Her glow is pale here, but it is better than nothing.
 
She is not a narcissistic thing. No, do not mistake this for vanity. It is a matter of feeling like her true self. Just as her mother had not felt like her true self until she’d gotten her wings. Her mother had known she had been meant for the sky and Liesma knows that she is meant for the darkness. It is that simple. 
 
She exhales a contented sigh, tucking her wings tightly against her sides, casting her pale glow into the darkness as she wanders. It is only when she feels certain that she is not alone that she stops, casting an imploring glance into the shadows pressing in around her. 
 
“Come out,” she calls softly into the darkness.
 

i see you shining through the treetops
But i don’t feel you pulling strings anymore

@nazghul

[nazghul]

i could be your favorite monster.


After getting his fill of the misery and madness that hung thick in the Pangean air, he decided it was time to explore the world. Nazghul is still a small shadow when he slips through the tall meadow grasses and across the impressive river. Being such a dark smudge on the world in such a clear autumn day feels all wrong, he quickly realizes. So he crawls into the shade of ancient oaks and maples, slinks through the underbrush without hardly a sound.

This place is also tinged with flavors of regret and loss. He makes a note to visit again later if he finds himself needing a morsel to keep his belly content. But then a voice calls out to him and his ears stand at attention. Come out, she commands him, and she shines in a way that terrifies. A breeze sweeps between the trees and it takes with it the veil of shadow encasing him. His golden face peers out from over a fallen tree with wide, shimmering eyes and a slowly turning halo of darkness.

“Me?” he asks in a whisper. Nazghul steps carefully over the tree and allows her glow to reflect off his brilliant skin. Together, they are a lavish treasure trove, but he hardly notices. He swallows the nervous lump in his throat.

“I’m Nazghul.”

NazghuL

@liesma

[liesma]

liesma

She does not expect him, but how could she have?
There are so many things that she has not seen.
 
There are many things that she will never see.
 
“You,” she says and watches him step over the log, watches him come closer. 
 
(Is this how her mother felt when she’d called her father to her? She imagines that it must have gone that way. There is no way for her to know that her father approached her mother without invitation, that he told her that he had never seen anything like her and she had responded plainly that of course he had not, there was no one like her. There is no way for her to know that she is not like her mother at all.
 
But this is a lesson for another day.)
 
She tilts her head, casting him in a new light as she angles her glowing blaze toward him.
 
She studies his brilliant coat, the dark contrast of the ring of shadows around his head. If she were to reach out and touch them would they scatter?
 
He offers his name though she has not asked and she shifts her focus back to his face. She does not smile, not because she is a cruel thing but because her father does not smile (he is not unkind either, simply serious, intense). She takes a single step toward him.
 
“Nazghul,” she repeats, trying out the shape of it, “my name is Liesma.”
 
She pauses only briefly before asking, “where did you come by this color?” 
 
She gestures to his shoulder but stops just short of touching him. 
 

i see you shining through the treetops
But i don’t feel you pulling strings anymore

@nazghul

[nazghul]

i could be your favorite monster.


Something in him says that if her light touches him, he will come apart. This isn’t true, of course, but he is born with a natural fear of things that are bright and shining like her. Only the shade of night is truly safe for a thing like him. So he shies backward when she reaches for him and his breath catches in his throat. Liesma doesn’t seem intent on harming him, and yet he fears she will regardless. Her beauty is a knife to his throat.

He blinks and the dark overtakes his body once more. It swallows the gold of him whole and shrouds him in quiet, in safety. “It comes and goes,” he answers with a mouth full of sharp teeth. Now, the ink black of him devours the light she emanates and spares not a single bit of it in a reflection. Nazghul shifts his weight and nervously paws at the ground with long claws.

“My mother was gold too. I don’t know where the black comes from,” he explains with a shrug of his small shoulder.

He imagines his father must have been something like the night sky - dark and beyond his reach. But he doesn’t mention this to her. They’ve only just met and his silly theories would mean nothing to her.

“What about you? Is your mother a star?”

NazghuL

@liesma

[liesma]

liesma

Where there was once gold there is now a yawning nothingness.

Not only black but the absence of color altogether. And it takes the soft glow she emits and swallows it whole. He goes from everything to the absolute opposite, which does not feel like nothing but even less than that. But there are sharp teeth when he speaks and he had recoiled when she’d reached for him, as if she was a thing worth being afraid of.

But there is no twist of mourning in her breast as she stares into the space he occupies but does not occupy. Instead, the light seems to collapse toward him and this is every bit as mystifying as the gold he had worn only moments earlier.

She tilts her head when he tells her that his mother had been gold. But the origin of this more-than-nothingness is a mystery. She nods, wondering if it comes from his father. Just as she is a perfect blend of her parents, he must be, too. But just as he does not lend a voice to his theory, she merely swallows hers.

“No,” she answers honestly, “we are not stars, we only wear them.”

She cranes her neck to touch her own chest where the stars seem to burn the brightest.

“Where have you gone?” she asks when she looks back up and he is still a black hole in the darkness, feasting on the light. “You were here only a moment ago.”

i see you shining through the treetops
But i don’t feel you pulling strings anymore

@nazghul