She has grown accustomed to living in her boredom. There were still days that she felt like she might combust from the inside out; there were still days that her heart beat so hard that it might leave her chest in its desperate search to find something, anything. She has learned to bear it, though. She has learned to grit her teeth and force her boiling blood to settle, has learned that she cannot always seek out her next hit. Her spiral had lasted longer than she had expected, last time, and she had the scars and the children and haunting memories to prove it.
She could be normal, she thinks. She could go back to being a ghost. She could fade further into the backdrop, like before, and just let herself be.
This part of the meadow was quiet, and she almost wishes it wasn’t. Noise and distraction made it easier to forget. To forget that Skellig was gone – as if she could blame him. She was the quietest hurricane, a tempest trapped inside a bottle, but she had still managed to wreak havoc on both their hearts. What would she even say, if he came back? She knows him; they would pretend nothing had changed. They would pretend there wasn’t a brand still so stark on her hip, they would pretend she hadn’t been with Ashhal, Carnage, and Atrox – like she wouldn’t go back to any one of them the very instant they called. They would pretend, and she would spiral, again, and again, and again.
She doesn’t remember coming to the lake, but when she blinks and refocuses, she is staring at the flat surface of the water. She preferred the ocean; preferred something wild that could break her apart, but for some reason she is staring into something tranquil and calm. Something that completely betrays what simmers on the inside of her.
There is a sigh that breathes past her lips, and she takes one step into the water, and then another. The chill of it bites at her skin, and even though there is something invigorating in that, she doesn’t make it past her knees. Instead, she is focused on a strange movement beneath the water in a deeper portion of the lake, and, in her typical fashion, she does not back away from the danger. “Hello?” She doesn’t know why she says that. Doesn’t know why she thinks whatever is under the water will answer her, or even hear her. But she stands there, unmoving, waiting.
bold of you to assume this thread will be mature.