a few thousand miles, and an ocean away. || amet, iset, any

[Antonia]

Few thousand miles and an ocean away,
but I see the sunrise, just like the other day.

  She is caught unaware, her bright, awestruck gaze settled on the serene stillness of the crystalline water cradled between the jagged ridges, with opulent, vivid vegetation draping over the terrain in its colorful splendor. When the voice, laced with arsenic and as bitter as a dandelion, interrupts her quiet reverie, she does not have any time to conceal the stunned expression from gracing her youthful, yet feminine features.

  Her eyes search the hardened plane of her face, seeing little else but ire and hostility, and soon she is bristling – her gleaming dappled skin parts for miniscule (yet finely sharpened) protrusions of bone, emerging from her skin wherever the bones of her skeletal outline may be.

  Along the bridge of her nose, long, curved horns, yet again carved of her own bone, protrude in a row, and the gleam of intrigue soon fades away from the shining gleam of her eyes. Her nostrils flare, as a brief glance is cast out towards the vast fallow before her, tracing the winding branches of draping wisteria, calling to her as it gently sways to and fro in the light and gentle breeze. Alas, it seemed it was all an illusion, kept captive by a single, solitary and evidently miserable imp.

  ”Is it yours? I hadn’t realized,” she murmurs, a low-lying irritation festering in her voice. She was often quiet, but far from meek, and she would not be threatened nor intimidated. ”I was passing through, trying to see what else is out there.” Her gaze is steady upon her now, studying the dark hollow of her cheek and the rigid line of muscle along the length of her neck.

  ”I had heard that there was a place to the north where those under a certain age could come to learn diplomacy and combat; I hoped maybe ..” but her voice fades away; it doesn’t matter what she had hoped. It seemed Hyaline held nothing for her.

  Not even the promise of opportunity.

  ”It doesn’t matter. I’ll go.”

Antonia