02-09-2017, 09:21 PM
She doesn’t turn when his eyes find her in the hazy dark, doesn’t hear the sound of his hooves when they sift through damp, heavy sand. But she knows he is there, somehow she knows, because the light-luster, the shadow-self, the impossible mare standing beneath impossible stars on Stillwater’s beach turns and looks back into the dark. Its eyes go wide and round, and that small, beautiful face is changed wholly by surprise, and then again by fear and pain. It is only in the half-second before Dovev makes contact, the time that lives between two heartbeats, that Luster realizes anything is amiss. It is only when his teeth find purchase in the soft of that blue skin, when they dive beneath fur and into flesh that she turns, too, and her face is the same as the mare outside Stillwater’s cave. Changed by pain and horror, and a surprise that neither one can understand.
Both are broken, both bleed. Red and warm and sweet from Luster’s trembling, blue neck. Black like shadow, like dark fog, from an identical wound in the mare made of light and dark. While the first is real and trapped, flesh and blood and such terrible, tangible things, the second is made only of longing and emotion, of the ache in a heart, and it dissolves like poured sand into the ashes of Stillwater’s beach. All of the stars above both beaches extinguish instantly.
She does not have time to find a word to cling to, not stop or help or why, there is only enough time to recoil from the shock, from the closeness, from the pain that blooms several seconds later. It is shock, maybe, that the pain only seems to dawn on her once she notices the warm and the wet and the red against his mouth. But when it does it is blinding, and she cries out against it in a voice that could shatter all the stars in all the skies. She tries to stumble back, to put distance between them – though she knows she isn’t brave enough to run, isn’t brave enough to turn her back on him, to take her eyes off of his face – but he is already there and locking her to his chest with a neck that feels entirely too powerful for the emaciated body it belongs to.
“Please,” she says, she whispers, she struggles in his grip, “you’re hurting me.” If she weren’t so shocked, so confused, she might’ve realized what a silly thing that was to say to him. Of course he knew he was hurting her, of course he meant to hurt her. But she is soft and sweet and it is impossible for her to try and understand what she might’ve done to coax so much rage from him, impossible to understand why he would want to hurt her. “Please.” She says again, another broken whisper, two dark eyes that shatter into glass. But he doesn’t stop, doesn’t let go, and so she forces what little remains of her light between their skin. It is meant like a shield, like a wall of glass to push him back, but she is so tired from traveling, so tired from the mare made of light that she did not realize she sent back to Sylva, and the wall between them is more like a thin, watery membrane. Slippery and soft, but useless in pushing him back.
Finally she stills against his chest, exhausted and spent and with a heart beating faster than the stars could flicker against their moorings in the sky. It is as though he can sense her weariness, her cautious defeat, because suddenly she is released from his chest, from the strong curve of a sharp, bony neck. She doesn’t run, she wishes she could, but she is not stupid enough to test him so outright when he is clearly both much stronger and more well rested than she. An instant later and his mouth is against her neck, tracing the lines of delicate muscle beneath the blue as though he had any right to be so close, as though he expected her to accept his touch.
She can’t.
Her ears pin to the back of her skull, disappearing into the tangles of dark and corn-silk mane, and she turns her face away from him, leaving her neck just out of reach of those hot, wandering lips. There is worse to come if you try to run. His warning is like a slap to the face, a knife forced into her chest, and suddenly she cannot breathe, cannot speak, cannot force her feet to take a few steps back even though her mind is begging. His mouth is against her skin again, a kiss placed so sweetly behind the curve of her ear in that soft, warm crook. But it is nothing like when Stillwater held her, nothing like his lips and his touches, his closeness that she had come to wish for. This is different and it is dark, it makes her skin crawl and her breath turn to ice in her lungs.
“Why?” She asks, almost a whimper, but she is trying so hard to be brave, trying so hard to understand why this stranger is so mad at her, why he traps his hate in kisses against the soft of her blue skin. Why me? It is the question that everyone must ask, the easiest question to shape ones lips around in a moment as strange and illogical as this one. “Why are you doing this?” Her eyes are so sad, so bruised, her face made less beautiful (or maybe more depending on whose eyes are watching) by the fear that deepens those hollows and draws tight lines of tension across the dark of her cheeks.
But his mouth is at her neck again, where the skin is stained with red and damp, and his teeth pinch lightly along the lines of her delicate jaw. What kind of man bathes you so entirely in his scent, but doesn't take you, doesn't keep you? His question makes her brow furrow and her eyes round, because she does not understand what he means until he speaks again. What kind of man lets you out of his sight if he truly wants you?
Stillwater.
Surprise wells beside the fear in her chest, thickens in her veins and in her voice because she had not considered his scent would still be so strong against the blue of that soft, trembling skin. “I am not meant for keeping.” She tells him, frowning even despite the way her voice trembled with pain and fear and an adrenaline she could do nothing with. “Maybe he does not truly want me.” She isn’t sure why she is so eager to answer his questions, except maybe for the fact that when he is speaking, he is distracted, and those dark lips don’t move so freely, so eagerly across her skin. But then they are both quiet, and his lips are against her throat as if they had lived there for centuries, as if every delicate hollow and curve was made specifically to be filled by him.
Another kiss and this time she does pull away, a few tentative steps back so that she can more easily see his face. She is surprised to find that he is beautiful, long and thin and full of sharp angles like marble and diamond. The bone plates are imposing, made almost grotesque by the damp blood that congeals around them, but he looks like a soldier, like a warrior, like someone she might’ve trusted. He doesn’t look like a monster, like a beast, but she remembers his teeth buried in her neck, flesh torn wide open, lips and kisses where they didn’t belong. She looks closers, looks for the madness in eyes so dark they could hardly be called black. But she still cannot understand. Her breathing stutters and trembles, and her eyes are filled with broken glass when they fall across his face. “I don’t need to be wanted,” a pause, a heartbeat, and she cannot help the way her small body trembles with fear and pain, “I just want to go home.”
Both are broken, both bleed. Red and warm and sweet from Luster’s trembling, blue neck. Black like shadow, like dark fog, from an identical wound in the mare made of light and dark. While the first is real and trapped, flesh and blood and such terrible, tangible things, the second is made only of longing and emotion, of the ache in a heart, and it dissolves like poured sand into the ashes of Stillwater’s beach. All of the stars above both beaches extinguish instantly.
She does not have time to find a word to cling to, not stop or help or why, there is only enough time to recoil from the shock, from the closeness, from the pain that blooms several seconds later. It is shock, maybe, that the pain only seems to dawn on her once she notices the warm and the wet and the red against his mouth. But when it does it is blinding, and she cries out against it in a voice that could shatter all the stars in all the skies. She tries to stumble back, to put distance between them – though she knows she isn’t brave enough to run, isn’t brave enough to turn her back on him, to take her eyes off of his face – but he is already there and locking her to his chest with a neck that feels entirely too powerful for the emaciated body it belongs to.
“Please,” she says, she whispers, she struggles in his grip, “you’re hurting me.” If she weren’t so shocked, so confused, she might’ve realized what a silly thing that was to say to him. Of course he knew he was hurting her, of course he meant to hurt her. But she is soft and sweet and it is impossible for her to try and understand what she might’ve done to coax so much rage from him, impossible to understand why he would want to hurt her. “Please.” She says again, another broken whisper, two dark eyes that shatter into glass. But he doesn’t stop, doesn’t let go, and so she forces what little remains of her light between their skin. It is meant like a shield, like a wall of glass to push him back, but she is so tired from traveling, so tired from the mare made of light that she did not realize she sent back to Sylva, and the wall between them is more like a thin, watery membrane. Slippery and soft, but useless in pushing him back.
Finally she stills against his chest, exhausted and spent and with a heart beating faster than the stars could flicker against their moorings in the sky. It is as though he can sense her weariness, her cautious defeat, because suddenly she is released from his chest, from the strong curve of a sharp, bony neck. She doesn’t run, she wishes she could, but she is not stupid enough to test him so outright when he is clearly both much stronger and more well rested than she. An instant later and his mouth is against her neck, tracing the lines of delicate muscle beneath the blue as though he had any right to be so close, as though he expected her to accept his touch.
She can’t.
Her ears pin to the back of her skull, disappearing into the tangles of dark and corn-silk mane, and she turns her face away from him, leaving her neck just out of reach of those hot, wandering lips. There is worse to come if you try to run. His warning is like a slap to the face, a knife forced into her chest, and suddenly she cannot breathe, cannot speak, cannot force her feet to take a few steps back even though her mind is begging. His mouth is against her skin again, a kiss placed so sweetly behind the curve of her ear in that soft, warm crook. But it is nothing like when Stillwater held her, nothing like his lips and his touches, his closeness that she had come to wish for. This is different and it is dark, it makes her skin crawl and her breath turn to ice in her lungs.
“Why?” She asks, almost a whimper, but she is trying so hard to be brave, trying so hard to understand why this stranger is so mad at her, why he traps his hate in kisses against the soft of her blue skin. Why me? It is the question that everyone must ask, the easiest question to shape ones lips around in a moment as strange and illogical as this one. “Why are you doing this?” Her eyes are so sad, so bruised, her face made less beautiful (or maybe more depending on whose eyes are watching) by the fear that deepens those hollows and draws tight lines of tension across the dark of her cheeks.
But his mouth is at her neck again, where the skin is stained with red and damp, and his teeth pinch lightly along the lines of her delicate jaw. What kind of man bathes you so entirely in his scent, but doesn't take you, doesn't keep you? His question makes her brow furrow and her eyes round, because she does not understand what he means until he speaks again. What kind of man lets you out of his sight if he truly wants you?
Stillwater.
Surprise wells beside the fear in her chest, thickens in her veins and in her voice because she had not considered his scent would still be so strong against the blue of that soft, trembling skin. “I am not meant for keeping.” She tells him, frowning even despite the way her voice trembled with pain and fear and an adrenaline she could do nothing with. “Maybe he does not truly want me.” She isn’t sure why she is so eager to answer his questions, except maybe for the fact that when he is speaking, he is distracted, and those dark lips don’t move so freely, so eagerly across her skin. But then they are both quiet, and his lips are against her throat as if they had lived there for centuries, as if every delicate hollow and curve was made specifically to be filled by him.
Another kiss and this time she does pull away, a few tentative steps back so that she can more easily see his face. She is surprised to find that he is beautiful, long and thin and full of sharp angles like marble and diamond. The bone plates are imposing, made almost grotesque by the damp blood that congeals around them, but he looks like a soldier, like a warrior, like someone she might’ve trusted. He doesn’t look like a monster, like a beast, but she remembers his teeth buried in her neck, flesh torn wide open, lips and kisses where they didn’t belong. She looks closers, looks for the madness in eyes so dark they could hardly be called black. But she still cannot understand. Her breathing stutters and trembles, and her eyes are filled with broken glass when they fall across his face. “I don’t need to be wanted,” a pause, a heartbeat, and she cannot help the way her small body trembles with fear and pain, “I just want to go home.”