[open] save yourself, any

[elodie]

She is shy, Elodie. Soft. Blinking big brown eyes at him, uncertain what to make of his easy grin. The light that rolls off him in muted waves. But she smiles back, a stilted, uncertain thing, as she sinks closer, beckoned by his question. Had he not asked it, she almost certainly would have taken her leave, skittered off into the trees, surrendered to her embarrassment. Because he is grateful but she shouldn’t have shouted.

She glances between him and the ice, relieved to have a reprieve from trying to decide exactly where that glow was coming from. She tilts her head, blinking down at the splintered ice. Despite the way he’d smiled at her, she feels like she’s being set up. They seem to be roughly the same age and she cannot help but wonder if he knows something she doesn’t know.

It doesn’t occur to her that he comes from someplace where the water is warm enough to be impervious to ice. She swallows hard and glances back at him. “It’s ice,” she says, quiet, uncertain. She wrinkles her nose then, heat pooling in her cheeks as she shuffles her ordinary feet. “I think.” She is on the verge of learning that she rambles when she’s nervous. “I think it’s because of the cold.”

She meets his golden eye again, her mouth pressed into a thin line. “What are those?” she asks, inching closer, reaching out without touching him. “In your hair. They’re really neat.” Stops just short of touching him, huffing softly before withdrawing, tucking her nose up by her chest.

but i knew love as a caging thing
just a killer come to call from some awful dream

e l o d i e

@[Eugene]