05-14-2022, 03:51 PM
Ryatah
WHEN I WAS SHIPWRECKED I THOUGHT OF YOU
IN THE CRACKS OF LIGHT I DREAMED OF YOU
It is a nearly toxic thing, the way her pulse flutters when the other says that her name is pretty. It is a small compliment, and likely just making conversation rather than anything genuine, but it does not matter. She is hard-wired to seek praise, a flaw that she had perhaps been born with but had then been shaped into something uncontrollable as events in her life transpired. It flickers there, in the dark of her eyes, a brief flash of something unnamable and strange, as if there is a war waging within the confines of her chest; trying to decide if she wants to give into the weakness of it. She has been better, recently, about not trying to please everyone, about not trying to change herself to fit everyone’s wants.
For some she still will, of course, but no longer everyone.
And so all she does is smile and nod, and offer a soft, “Thank you.” She looks to the place where the shadows had trailed the mare’s movements, thinks of the immovable darkness in the void and feels the unnerving swelling in her chest that has followed her ever since she left, like the darkness has holed itself away in there and is trying to break free. “You can control shadows, too?” she asks in mild curiosity, thinking briefly of Illum and their daughter and the way they could bend shadows to their will. She has never had much desire to control anything, is usually the thing being controlled. She has always been a painfully obedient creature, until, of course, she is not, because there is a sickening thrill in being punished—in discovering what boundaries exist and exactly which ones should not be crossed.
“Fathers are important, I suppose,” she says, faintly amused. Most of her children didn’t know their fathers, at least not personally. It was hardly a secret that she had developed a distinct taste in men—a taste that did not lend well to fatherhood, but she doesn’t mind. She was rarely interested in them for that reason.
“Violence,” her name fits nicely on her tongue, maybe a little too comfortably for one that wears a halo, but the shape of it—the meaning behind it—is familiar. “Also a pretty name, if not in a different way.” She does notice the strangeness of that comment, her expression unchanged; still openly curious with lips shaped into a faint smile. “Were you looking for something in the forest?”
For some she still will, of course, but no longer everyone.
And so all she does is smile and nod, and offer a soft, “Thank you.” She looks to the place where the shadows had trailed the mare’s movements, thinks of the immovable darkness in the void and feels the unnerving swelling in her chest that has followed her ever since she left, like the darkness has holed itself away in there and is trying to break free. “You can control shadows, too?” she asks in mild curiosity, thinking briefly of Illum and their daughter and the way they could bend shadows to their will. She has never had much desire to control anything, is usually the thing being controlled. She has always been a painfully obedient creature, until, of course, she is not, because there is a sickening thrill in being punished—in discovering what boundaries exist and exactly which ones should not be crossed.
“Fathers are important, I suppose,” she says, faintly amused. Most of her children didn’t know their fathers, at least not personally. It was hardly a secret that she had developed a distinct taste in men—a taste that did not lend well to fatherhood, but she doesn’t mind. She was rarely interested in them for that reason.
“Violence,” her name fits nicely on her tongue, maybe a little too comfortably for one that wears a halo, but the shape of it—the meaning behind it—is familiar. “Also a pretty name, if not in a different way.” She does notice the strangeness of that comment, her expression unchanged; still openly curious with lips shaped into a faint smile. “Were you looking for something in the forest?”
AND IT WAS REAL ENOUGH TO GET ME THROUGH —
BUT I SWEAR YOU WERE THERE
@violence