don't ruin this for me
She is oblivious to his anger, Clementia. Though she likely would not have recognized it for what it was, even if she had seen it flash brilliant across his face. Even if she had seen it fester in his eyes. Even if she had smelled it on his skin. No, she has only ever known the soft things. Love and tenderness. Unbridled joy.
The same things she feels when the river curls itself sweetly against her, kisses her sides so gingerly. And still she smiles, caught up in her fever dream. Even when the water falls away and she returns to him. Even when he reaches out to touch her and, rather than pull her crystalline nose away, she huffs out a soft breath.
The smile does not flicker or fade with his compliment, only shifts. Deeper. More darling. She blinks those galaxy eyes at him, tilts her fine head. She knows but she does not say so. Instead, she remembers a girl with bees in her hair who had looked at her as if she’d hung the moon. Who had stared at her in wide-eyed wonder while Clementia’s skin threw rainbows into the space between them. She knows she is lovely, but it still spurs her fragile heart into a frenzy to hear him say it.
And her heart beats harder still when he smiles. She is enraptured, ensnared in the web he weaves, unaware. But she, soft and malleable, likely would have gone willingly even if she had been aware. Dangerous, certainly, for such a tender thing to be so inexplicably drawn to the dark things.
She sinks closer still, wearing that dreamy smile all the while. And perhaps she should recoil, show the whites of her galaxy eyes, let her heartbeat carry her far away from him. But when he whispers to her, she merely blinks and nods. If this is her coffin, she will slip happily into it. “I won’t,” she murmurs. Perhaps sealing her fate without realizing.
“My name is Clementia,” she tells him without a glimmer of trepidation. Soothed, maybe, by the promise he whispers directly into her head. It fills her with delight, certainly. Shifts that dreamy smile into something else. Something solid, vibrant. “What’s yours?” she asks, touching her mouth to his shoulder again, exhaling softly against his skin.
