nothing fades like the light

[elio]

elio

The smell of the salty ocean relaxes muscles Elio did not realize were tensed. His eyelids flutter low, almost tired, as they track the rainbows of fish twining around him. He is not in control here -- a fact that would normally frighten him -- and that allows him to lean into illusion as if it is and forever will be his reality.

Done with the fish, Lio lifts his gaze to Aegean's glowing frame. Elio notes how he looks more of the highest cloud than the bottom of the sea, remembering suddenly that what twists and turns around him is not actually his world. He grows dizzy, anxiously flitting to find anchor in the stranger's purpe gaze.

Elio holds steady there, in the amethyst. It feels as if Aegean will understand, even if he truly can't.

The white stallion's magic wraps tight tendrils around Lio's limbs. He shifts, sand sputtering angrily beneath him, feeling the illusionism latch onto the most imaginative parts of his brain.

For one blissful moment, the golden stallion is in control, stormy eyes growing wide as the water slowly makes way for glowing, white clouds. His mind builds a whole sky beneath the ocean, complete with a pockmarked moon and glittering stars. Lio looks to Aegean with pure, boyish delight in his eyes. His mouth falls open in a wild grin.

The moment passes swiftly. The moon's glow is dimmed by a thick cloud but Elio can still see Wolfbane's form in the distance. Next to Celina. Both tearing into him. Among the stars and the water, they look especially monstruous. As if sensing Lio's attention, Bane lifts his bloodied head to stare and laugh.

"No," Elio whispers. "No."

i don't think i could stand to be
where you don't see me