this fire inside me; islas

[Kamaria]

T he darkness is all she has known. She was born into it (high, cold walls of a cave colored in the peeling paint of a father’s magic), and she grows within it. Yet Kamaria cannot say she understands the darkness. Deeper than that, she knows that it is unnatural and does not suit her well. The shadows feel too heavy, pressing on her young body and pulling her down. They make her want to find an isolated piece of their cave and dream of something different until it becomes a reality. Though she can’t grasp what sunlight (or the lights of the night that may one day call to her the strongest) is, Kamaria has an itching feeling that this darkness is not all there is to life. She has kept her questions to herself, even when she watches her mother stare into the sky for endless hours, even when they visit the northern lake and Kamaria is forced to stay away from the nearly-frozen waters. They ruminate within her, the questions; they soak into her dreams and write themselves on the red rocks. And her questions scream when the darkest shadows (she calls them Hunters, for lack of a better term) stalk across their home, so Islas gathers her tight, and they run home. Finally, Kamaria feels like she might burst. Her skin feels hot, even in the eternal chill the darkness brings, and her delicate features twist into a face of confusion. While they search for a meager meal, the girl finally lets one single question slip out. “Has it always been dark?” So strange for a daughter born for starlight to ask a question about light she has never known from a mother who had fallen from the galaxies herself.

credit to nat of adoxography.

@[Islas]