04-26-2020, 09:43 PM
She is a million shades of red and bright, a tiny living ruby curled quietly in deep green grass. There are flowers in her mane, pale pink and with petals that look almost velvet in the right light, but they are just as the girl is, hard and cold and unmoving. Alive and yet somehow not. There is a peal of laughter from somewhere nearby, a few children running together through tall grass and bounding over winding streams, and though she scrambles to her feet with the sound of silver chiming, they are already gone by the time she is up.
Her gold eyes go quiet again, big and round and so sad. She knows she’s not supposed to play with the other kids though, they’re too big and too rough for a little girl made of glass. For a girl made to break. But when they laugh and race and tumble together, she can feel her gentle heart fill with yearning. Maybe mom wouldn’t notice if she snuck away just this one time - she doesn’t even have to be gone long! Just one game of tag across the criss-crossing streams of Tephra.
She takes a few steps, a few brave bounding leaps as her little glass tail flicks excitedly behind her. Mom will never know, it’s totally fine, totally not a big deal. But she lands from a bounce and her delicate body groans with the sound of splintering glass. It’s not quite the same as something breaking, there’s nothing cracked along the surface of her cool skin. But when she pauses to look down at her legs, there are tiny fissures twining up just barely beneath the surface of her iridescent legs.
The tiny girl wilts at the reminder, the warning buried inside her own body. “It’s not fair.” She says aloud, though only the flowers are near enough to hear. Instead of laying back down, she wanders quietly beside the babbling stream, sharing flashes of sunlight between the water and her skin.
She’s only just barely paying enough attention to realize there’s someone up ahead, but it isn’t until she glances up that she realizes that someone is her brother. “Thorn!” She cries out, suddenly a hurtling comet in shining red colliding helplessly against his side. “I missed you.” She accuses, burying her little face in the warmth of his dark shoulder. Though she would absolutely never admit it, Thorn has been the easiest to love.
It was his violet eyes that were waiting for her when she opened her eyes for the very first time.
It is because of him that she lives at all.
“Will you stay with me today?” Those gold eyes are so gentle and so full of hope as she sneaks forward to curl against his chest - a chest broken open and bleeding. “Oh my god, Thorn, what happened?” She’s nosing at it helplessly, trying to close the hole or stop the bleeding, anything. “Why can’t you fix it like you fixed me?”
Her gold eyes go quiet again, big and round and so sad. She knows she’s not supposed to play with the other kids though, they’re too big and too rough for a little girl made of glass. For a girl made to break. But when they laugh and race and tumble together, she can feel her gentle heart fill with yearning. Maybe mom wouldn’t notice if she snuck away just this one time - she doesn’t even have to be gone long! Just one game of tag across the criss-crossing streams of Tephra.
She takes a few steps, a few brave bounding leaps as her little glass tail flicks excitedly behind her. Mom will never know, it’s totally fine, totally not a big deal. But she lands from a bounce and her delicate body groans with the sound of splintering glass. It’s not quite the same as something breaking, there’s nothing cracked along the surface of her cool skin. But when she pauses to look down at her legs, there are tiny fissures twining up just barely beneath the surface of her iridescent legs.
The tiny girl wilts at the reminder, the warning buried inside her own body. “It’s not fair.” She says aloud, though only the flowers are near enough to hear. Instead of laying back down, she wanders quietly beside the babbling stream, sharing flashes of sunlight between the water and her skin.
She’s only just barely paying enough attention to realize there’s someone up ahead, but it isn’t until she glances up that she realizes that someone is her brother. “Thorn!” She cries out, suddenly a hurtling comet in shining red colliding helplessly against his side. “I missed you.” She accuses, burying her little face in the warmth of his dark shoulder. Though she would absolutely never admit it, Thorn has been the easiest to love.
It was his violet eyes that were waiting for her when she opened her eyes for the very first time.
It is because of him that she lives at all.
“Will you stay with me today?” Those gold eyes are so gentle and so full of hope as she sneaks forward to curl against his chest - a chest broken open and bleeding. “Oh my god, Thorn, what happened?” She’s nosing at it helplessly, trying to close the hole or stop the bleeding, anything. “Why can’t you fix it like you fixed me?”
FLOWER
i'm only steady on my knees