The silence that blankets Thorn’s mind is all-consuming. Prayer that appears like a dream and reminds him of a nightmare, seemingly materializes immediately before him.
Thorn, she says, and it sounds like an echo, or like a scream made underwater. All of his blood rushes to his head and he flushes, hot and dizzy, out of breath. That strain, the way she draws back just before touching him—that’s what really drives the dagger in.
“Prayer,” Thorn gasps, casting eyes so disturbed that they look surreal paired with such a lovely lilac. There’s a plea that sits on the tip of his tongue: please touch me. Because this pain Thorn can feel, the one balled tight in her chest, is the heaviest he’s borne and maybe—maybe, if her touch were too much for him, it would be a fair way for him to die.
Thorn hesitates to respond for a moment too long. He can’t get the crystal clear sound of the wintertime river he had met her in front of out of his head. Thorn’s there, now, small and belly-deep in water too cold for any being, but especially a child. “Don’t touch me,” he calls from that frigid water. The glaze over his eyes is cold, his voice somehow distant even as they stand next to each other. “You can’t be here.”
With a gasp, the boy locked in the river hops out—Thorn’s eyes glimmer with just a hint of light, just enough to furrow his brow.
“There’s nothing you can do.”
It’s the truth, and it’s spoken more sweetly than his previous words, but to speak to her in such a way still stings.
Thorn, she says, and it sounds like an echo, or like a scream made underwater. All of his blood rushes to his head and he flushes, hot and dizzy, out of breath. That strain, the way she draws back just before touching him—that’s what really drives the dagger in.
“Prayer,” Thorn gasps, casting eyes so disturbed that they look surreal paired with such a lovely lilac. There’s a plea that sits on the tip of his tongue: please touch me. Because this pain Thorn can feel, the one balled tight in her chest, is the heaviest he’s borne and maybe—maybe, if her touch were too much for him, it would be a fair way for him to die.
Thorn hesitates to respond for a moment too long. He can’t get the crystal clear sound of the wintertime river he had met her in front of out of his head. Thorn’s there, now, small and belly-deep in water too cold for any being, but especially a child. “Don’t touch me,” he calls from that frigid water. The glaze over his eyes is cold, his voice somehow distant even as they stand next to each other. “You can’t be here.”
With a gasp, the boy locked in the river hops out—Thorn’s eyes glimmer with just a hint of light, just enough to furrow his brow.
“There’s nothing you can do.”
It’s the truth, and it’s spoken more sweetly than his previous words, but to speak to her in such a way still stings.
thorn
under your skin, over the moon
don't let me in, I don't know what I'd do
roses are fallin', roses from fallin' for you, ooh