10-24-2021, 05:36 PM
She stiffens at his approach but does nothing to stop it, eyes following the smooth curl of dark bone that pulls away from the shadowed woods. It's almost a relief - not really, but almost - to know who she is looking at without having to study them, and it's this that keeps her still long enough to half-heartedly wait for his reply, even as that anxiety he tastes in the air turns her teeth to wicked points. She catches the venom of his words and, without catching herself, flicks her gaze up to the dark hollows where his red eyes must be. For a horrible moment, she forgets that she won't see them shining back at her.
Mistake follows mistake; though he dulls the edge of his tongue, she recognizes the meaning behind what he says as something that too closely identifies the image of herself she holds close to that treacherous heart in her chest. It strikes a nervous pattern, fast and irregular, its heaving makes her choke sometimes in the golden happy meadow of her home and her family, but here, in the tea-brown creek, it quiets. Something lifts away and what it leaves behind is slightly dazed, confused enough to not react when Torryn steps closer than she should allow, but she does allow it, with her lips and her brow twisted into a small quizzical frown.
She has never been good at being careful.
"Escape," she replies, bluntly, without seeing the way he studies her skin. And then, as if the word was the floodgate lock, there's guilt to drown the space he's emptied because she knows that she has no right to her unhappiness. She knows that others have suffered far worse than she ever has, that her family is comfortable and content and perfect and it's only this place inside her that refuses to heal breaking everything to pieces, "Because even the things that are right, aren't. But there isn't one, I think."
He isn't wrong about bringing light into the Deepwood. It makes her a beacon, yes, but it also strengthens the darkness that remains. Like the noon-day sun makes the shadows strong and sharp, her halo makes those black bones of his even blacker, the haze of gold makes them more obscure, more impenetrable, warded against the softly pulsing glow. She cannot forget the way the pieces of him reacted to her magic, pulling away from her grasp, and, full of her own self-hatred, she plucks recklessly at his shadows again just to see what will happen.
Mistake follows mistake; though he dulls the edge of his tongue, she recognizes the meaning behind what he says as something that too closely identifies the image of herself she holds close to that treacherous heart in her chest. It strikes a nervous pattern, fast and irregular, its heaving makes her choke sometimes in the golden happy meadow of her home and her family, but here, in the tea-brown creek, it quiets. Something lifts away and what it leaves behind is slightly dazed, confused enough to not react when Torryn steps closer than she should allow, but she does allow it, with her lips and her brow twisted into a small quizzical frown.
She has never been good at being careful.
"Escape," she replies, bluntly, without seeing the way he studies her skin. And then, as if the word was the floodgate lock, there's guilt to drown the space he's emptied because she knows that she has no right to her unhappiness. She knows that others have suffered far worse than she ever has, that her family is comfortable and content and perfect and it's only this place inside her that refuses to heal breaking everything to pieces, "Because even the things that are right, aren't. But there isn't one, I think."
He isn't wrong about bringing light into the Deepwood. It makes her a beacon, yes, but it also strengthens the darkness that remains. Like the noon-day sun makes the shadows strong and sharp, her halo makes those black bones of his even blacker, the haze of gold makes them more obscure, more impenetrable, warded against the softly pulsing glow. She cannot forget the way the pieces of him reacted to her magic, pulling away from her grasp, and, full of her own self-hatred, she plucks recklessly at his shadows again just to see what will happen.
@Torryn