02-10-2024, 11:55 PM
elodie
There, a trail of scorched earth. And here, a fire-thing to follow it.
It is the flame that beckons her more than the promise of freedom.
(Because Elodie was a thing meant for leaving, not for having. Elodie was a thing meant for searching, she had labored at it her whole life. She had found nothing of what she’d been looking for, though. No matter what lengths she’d gone to, she had come up empty always.)
It had been the darkness that had given her the fire. That terrible, suffocating darkness. It had been the darkness that had taken her mother. (And isn’t it her mother that she’s been searching for all these years? But Elodie has changed so much since the last time she’d seen her, how does she know she’d recognize Lilian even if she saw her?)
And perhaps the fire is the first thing that she has ever loved, because the fire was meant for staying. Because the fire smoldered in the cage of her chest, because it crowned her fine head, because it sprouted bright and burning from the points of her hips when she willed it to. Because the fire loves her, too. And with the fire comes the fireflies that alight on her skin, touch her so gently that it makes her quiver. She loves them, too.
There, ahead, where the trail of scorched earth ends there is a small gathering. It is immediately obvious who is responsible for it, the stallion with flames where his mane and tail should be. It is the flame that calls to her.
She fits here, she thinks, as she draws nearer. Such a strange thing to think for a girl who has never belonged anywhere at all. The others speak, but she does not. She merely loiters, glancing between the three of them before her deep yellow eyes fall heavy, finally, on the one who’d called them to gather.
It is the flame that beckons her more than the promise of freedom.
(Because Elodie was a thing meant for leaving, not for having. Elodie was a thing meant for searching, she had labored at it her whole life. She had found nothing of what she’d been looking for, though. No matter what lengths she’d gone to, she had come up empty always.)
It had been the darkness that had given her the fire. That terrible, suffocating darkness. It had been the darkness that had taken her mother. (And isn’t it her mother that she’s been searching for all these years? But Elodie has changed so much since the last time she’d seen her, how does she know she’d recognize Lilian even if she saw her?)
And perhaps the fire is the first thing that she has ever loved, because the fire was meant for staying. Because the fire smoldered in the cage of her chest, because it crowned her fine head, because it sprouted bright and burning from the points of her hips when she willed it to. Because the fire loves her, too. And with the fire comes the fireflies that alight on her skin, touch her so gently that it makes her quiver. She loves them, too.
There, ahead, where the trail of scorched earth ends there is a small gathering. It is immediately obvious who is responsible for it, the stallion with flames where his mane and tail should be. It is the flame that calls to her.
She fits here, she thinks, as she draws nearer. Such a strange thing to think for a girl who has never belonged anywhere at all. The others speak, but she does not. She merely loiters, glancing between the three of them before her deep yellow eyes fall heavy, finally, on the one who’d called them to gather.
I’ll let my hunger take me there
