leave me at the altar, knowing all the things you just escaped
He has spent time ensconced in shadow.
Learning how to live with the things he has learned about himself.
He has thought about the ire of the stallion in the forest, how he had demanded to know what Isakov was. They had spoken of stars and all of the things stars are capable of, the casual cruelty that came so naturally to them.
He has thought about the girl, too, and the heat of the fire she had ringed around them. How it had licked at his heels and he had felt a pulse of something in his throat (something, something, he had not known if it was fear or intrigue or if there was a difference between the two). How he had guessed that she loved the fire and how there had been some impulse in him to fashion himself after the flames, to turn himself into fire, too.
He still does not understand it, this dark thing in his chest, but he has learned how to live with it. He has learned that the thing he sees shimmering at their centers is the thing they love and he has learned that he is capable of letting it shape him. But he does not know why.
Finally, he has emerged.
And, as if he has divined her simply by thinking of her, he catches sight of her through the trees. As if he has wished her into existence. And he smiles something secret as he moves toward her and relaxes into the magic that consumes him. He does not resist it.
So when he reaches her, not far from the place where he’d first seen her, there are flames dancing across his skin. Flames licking up his sides, curling their vibrant fingers through his hair. But they are merely an illusion. Were she to get close enough, she would find that they lack in heat. They do not burn because they are not there at all. They exist only because the fire is what she loves.
“Sunlight,” he murmurs, a low greeting, a slanted smile tying up the corners of his mouth. And then the flames wink out and they are plunged into darkness.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” he tells her and feels no shame for having admitted it.
@[Sunlight]