a little bit of lavender for luck; any

[Elliana]

W

atching her parents, all of them, she wonders if love is just another moment. Moments have never been things by which she might count the passing of time. They have never been more than hollow echoes of her heart, frailer than butterfly wings and just as fleeting. Moments just exist so that the ache of life does not feel so heavy. But when it comes down to it,  you will still die alone.

Black and blue. Their eyes look like a bruise, or a black sand beach. In her dreams there are monsters running alongside her like shadows and for heartbeat she wonders if those monsters lurch in the shadows of her dark eyes. The thought weighs heavy on her heart like a noose. The glacier blue of her eyes watches her and that knowing look of hers burns. She has a way of watching people with a terrifying intensity, staring not at them but through them, moving her eyes over the ridges of their bones, the curve of their ribs, staring straight through their hear. But she turns hers away from the woman, focusing instead on the calm bustle of leaves when the wind rolls over them.
The curl in her heart makes her think perhaps she is bitter, after all, as she stares into the trees and imagines things she would never dare to speak. The bitterness of her home, where she came from.

Terratella was poisoned by the memory of her mother, her hero, crumbling before her very eyes and taking what youthfulness Elliana still had down with her. Although, it didn't outweigh the happy memories, not all of them at least.

She says none of these things though, maybe if she had she would have found some sort of kinship in the girl, or maybe it would be far too early and they would both leave each other, and Elliana would be more bitter than when they started.

“I don’t think my parents ever told me. Or they said it was magic and never thought to correct it,” Elliana chirps, almost shocked by the sudden flip-flop of her personality. She feels homesick, almost.

Almost.

There is a lump in her throat and when she swallows, it hardens into stone and sinks down to crush her heart. “Oh.” She says and it sounds like a the start of a story. But she doesn't tell one, just tastes the flavor of orange and gold on her tongue. “And what is it that you love about autumn?” She asks. She wants to say her mother loved summer, her godfather loved spring, and her dad loved only the stars and the night. “I may be partial to winter.” She says. “If I had to pick.”




She speaks like this.

some are ghosts before they are dead.

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