04-29-2017, 08:54 PM
Polaris
In another world, dark finds her first. Someone who spies her fragile sort of beauty with hungry eyes and an unnamable greed – someone who would rather taste her innocence than see it protected. In that world, she is ruined. She is not a star, not guiding light, but rather a supernova; bright and catastrophic even in her death throes. In that world, she is made to be undone, made to be sinister and ruinous and defined by the dark who made her. In that world, she is a shadow-self.
But in this one, it is light that finds her first, a radiance she reflects back as easily as any gleaming surface, an echo of the soul who found her. It will be this light that defines her, his light and his bright even though he cannot see it himself. It will always be him at her core, him in her heart, he who found her and loved her and lit that flickering bright inside her chest with strong, steady hands.
This will always be her first memory, the first piece of Polaris.
Polaris.
She lifts her small, twinkling face to the sound of his voice, soft-eyed and smiling when his lips brush a kiss across the smooth of her cheek. Polaris. She isn’t entirely certain what he means, what the word means, but it is clear enough that he gives it to her. That it means something to him even if it means nothing to her, yet. She flicks an ear at him curiously and those pale amber eyes never drift far from the quiet calm of his dark face. Polaris.
He rises, careful when he disentangles from the smooth teal of her gleaming body, and leans down to press a second kiss to the fogged whorl of paler color near the center of her forehead. She accepts it quietly, still curious, not understanding the weight these gestures hold so much as she is starting to understand the softening of his stoic face. She rises beside him with round-eyed trust, struggling for a moment to keep those tired, wobbling legs beneath her. But she steadies and steps closer, pushing her nose against his belly as if to ask, now what?
Except he feels different now, even the air around him feels different, and she tilts her head up at him in that quiet, imploring way. He is cold like she is, more than she is, but it is hard for her to distinguish the difference, hard to feel the bite of such deep ice through the glass of her delicate nose. Still, the likeness warms her just as the spots had, like a hand over hers and pulling her closer. She lifts her face again to him, so quietly pleased, and is startled at the intent with which he watches her.
Her skin – is it fair to call that skin – cools suddenly and she remembers the sensation from earlier, smiles, and twists to look back across her shoulder again. Just as before, she is him in teal, spotted and frost and glacial; beautiful. She reaches to push her nose against his shoulder but before she can, he has changed her again. The ice melts, he melts from her skin in sad, damp rivulets, leaving dark tracks of moisture like the tracks of tears down cheeks. There is worry in her heart at once, a broken kind of uncertainty that comes from having already been left behind once and she totters forward to reach for his chin, lipping uncertainly at the whiskers there.
But then he turns and he smiles – the radiance that gave light to the star in her chest – and she twists again with an uncertain kind of curiosity, of trust, to trace the new changes he had enameled into the teal. In the broken places, the places carved hollow and uneven with the echo of her mistakes, he placed jewels of gleaming ice, pieces of himself to fill them. To him, they remind her to love herself, all of herself, even the parts that make her different. But to her it is something more. It is the promise of I am with you, always - when you are broken, I will fix you; when forget who you are, remember you are mine. It is the promise of a father, it is what it means to be loved.
When she bounds forward, not unlike a doe in her quiet, easy grace, it is to tuck against his cold shoulder and press that small, smiling face to him. She has not seen the horizon of ice-stars he buried in the ridge of her small back, cannot turn so tightly with such a fragile body. But when she discovers those later, beneath someone elses lips or in the reflection of a pond, she will soften and shine and feel pride for the family she has joined, for the man who dared to love her when even her own mother could not.
But in this one, it is light that finds her first, a radiance she reflects back as easily as any gleaming surface, an echo of the soul who found her. It will be this light that defines her, his light and his bright even though he cannot see it himself. It will always be him at her core, him in her heart, he who found her and loved her and lit that flickering bright inside her chest with strong, steady hands.
This will always be her first memory, the first piece of Polaris.
Polaris.
She lifts her small, twinkling face to the sound of his voice, soft-eyed and smiling when his lips brush a kiss across the smooth of her cheek. Polaris. She isn’t entirely certain what he means, what the word means, but it is clear enough that he gives it to her. That it means something to him even if it means nothing to her, yet. She flicks an ear at him curiously and those pale amber eyes never drift far from the quiet calm of his dark face. Polaris.
He rises, careful when he disentangles from the smooth teal of her gleaming body, and leans down to press a second kiss to the fogged whorl of paler color near the center of her forehead. She accepts it quietly, still curious, not understanding the weight these gestures hold so much as she is starting to understand the softening of his stoic face. She rises beside him with round-eyed trust, struggling for a moment to keep those tired, wobbling legs beneath her. But she steadies and steps closer, pushing her nose against his belly as if to ask, now what?
Except he feels different now, even the air around him feels different, and she tilts her head up at him in that quiet, imploring way. He is cold like she is, more than she is, but it is hard for her to distinguish the difference, hard to feel the bite of such deep ice through the glass of her delicate nose. Still, the likeness warms her just as the spots had, like a hand over hers and pulling her closer. She lifts her face again to him, so quietly pleased, and is startled at the intent with which he watches her.
Her skin – is it fair to call that skin – cools suddenly and she remembers the sensation from earlier, smiles, and twists to look back across her shoulder again. Just as before, she is him in teal, spotted and frost and glacial; beautiful. She reaches to push her nose against his shoulder but before she can, he has changed her again. The ice melts, he melts from her skin in sad, damp rivulets, leaving dark tracks of moisture like the tracks of tears down cheeks. There is worry in her heart at once, a broken kind of uncertainty that comes from having already been left behind once and she totters forward to reach for his chin, lipping uncertainly at the whiskers there.
But then he turns and he smiles – the radiance that gave light to the star in her chest – and she twists again with an uncertain kind of curiosity, of trust, to trace the new changes he had enameled into the teal. In the broken places, the places carved hollow and uneven with the echo of her mistakes, he placed jewels of gleaming ice, pieces of himself to fill them. To him, they remind her to love herself, all of herself, even the parts that make her different. But to her it is something more. It is the promise of I am with you, always - when you are broken, I will fix you; when forget who you are, remember you are mine. It is the promise of a father, it is what it means to be loved.
When she bounds forward, not unlike a doe in her quiet, easy grace, it is to tuck against his cold shoulder and press that small, smiling face to him. She has not seen the horizon of ice-stars he buried in the ridge of her small back, cannot turn so tightly with such a fragile body. But when she discovers those later, beneath someone elses lips or in the reflection of a pond, she will soften and shine and feel pride for the family she has joined, for the man who dared to love her when even her own mother could not.
though i never needed any proof to trust the heart that beats inside of you