12-16-2020, 08:19 PM
stifled the choice and the air in my lungs;
better not to breathe than to breathe a lie
The line between wrong and right can quickly become blurred with such an influential ability. Does he create the emotions out of thin air and pour them into the body of another or does he simply coax their feelings from their hiding places and stoke their fires? He imagines himself pouring the hot lead of guilt into their veins. He imagines himself pulling surprise from their belly and allowing it to soak into every inch of them until they are quivering.
Tiercel has wondered many times if there is a line between creating and magnifying — and if there is such a thing, whether he will notice it as his skills develop. His stubbornness and bitterness have never given him a chance to ask his mother, not even when they were on speaking terms. But as he tenderly coaxes the happiness to ignite within Islas, he can tell that this emotion is different. It is the tiniest flame of its own, a small burning ember that may quickly disappear into ash if he does not give it oxygen and nutrients.
So Tiercel feeds the ember what it craves and watches as she softens like an innocent fawn before him. Despite the gnawing emptiness he knows she feels, there is something genuine about her that is neither manufactured nor illuminated. Islas is unapologetically authentic in her own starry way. He cannot begin to comprehend exactly what she is, but he also cannot deny that there is something different about her.
She is ethereal, otherworldly, astounding.
She is reliable, and yet he finds himself surprised by her.
As his cerulean eyes look first into her gaze and then across the lines of her pale face, Tiercel begins to understand that he might never figure her out, no matter the amount of time he might peer into her abyss.
“I haven’t decided yet.” Reluctantly, he peels his gaze away from her and scans Loess’s hills and valleys. “This is what I was running from when we first met.” Tiercel allows her to feel all he had felt that night — the overwhelming guilt that Gale had died while he had struggled among the thorns, the fiery anger toward the family that felt distant and ill-fitting, the aching sadness upon leaving the favorite nooks and crannies he had grown up among, the surreal excitement at the possibilities in front of him, the lingering rapture she had left him with in the hours and days and weeks past their goodbye — and each emotion might sweep over her like the rhythmic tides of the oceans or the slow rotation of the stars upon the skies.
He paints his life into her darkness so she is full of color. Once he has finished, there is a steady ache of emotions (the emotions that he feels when he thinks of her, in fact) but they are too numerous to put to words.
Tiercel has wondered many times if there is a line between creating and magnifying — and if there is such a thing, whether he will notice it as his skills develop. His stubbornness and bitterness have never given him a chance to ask his mother, not even when they were on speaking terms. But as he tenderly coaxes the happiness to ignite within Islas, he can tell that this emotion is different. It is the tiniest flame of its own, a small burning ember that may quickly disappear into ash if he does not give it oxygen and nutrients.
So Tiercel feeds the ember what it craves and watches as she softens like an innocent fawn before him. Despite the gnawing emptiness he knows she feels, there is something genuine about her that is neither manufactured nor illuminated. Islas is unapologetically authentic in her own starry way. He cannot begin to comprehend exactly what she is, but he also cannot deny that there is something different about her.
She is ethereal, otherworldly, astounding.
She is reliable, and yet he finds himself surprised by her.
As his cerulean eyes look first into her gaze and then across the lines of her pale face, Tiercel begins to understand that he might never figure her out, no matter the amount of time he might peer into her abyss.
“I haven’t decided yet.” Reluctantly, he peels his gaze away from her and scans Loess’s hills and valleys. “This is what I was running from when we first met.” Tiercel allows her to feel all he had felt that night — the overwhelming guilt that Gale had died while he had struggled among the thorns, the fiery anger toward the family that felt distant and ill-fitting, the aching sadness upon leaving the favorite nooks and crannies he had grown up among, the surreal excitement at the possibilities in front of him, the lingering rapture she had left him with in the hours and days and weeks past their goodbye — and each emotion might sweep over her like the rhythmic tides of the oceans or the slow rotation of the stars upon the skies.
He paints his life into her darkness so she is full of color. Once he has finished, there is a steady ache of emotions (the emotions that he feels when he thinks of her, in fact) but they are too numerous to put to words.
tiercel.
@[Islas]