"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
She had slipped out before the stars had fully faded from the dawn sky. Father had stirred first, lifting that dark blue head to watch her leave, a smile drawn like a heavy slash across his mouth. Mother had stirred next and offered her a similar smile – though it was much softer in the deep black of her quiet face. Neither seemed overly concerned, this wouldn’t be the first time she had slipped out to watch the sun unearth itself and return to its post in the sky. But their faith in her just made the lie hurt a little more. She had been planning this in secret ever since Rora had whispered the word Sylva.
Today, she would go see it for herself.
It is easy enough to slip between the trees, invisible in the shadow thanks to a gift she cannot explain. She suspects it would be easy even if she weren’t invisible, suspects that there is very little that is interesting about a small and plain yearling the color of deep, murky ocean. From the forest she slips into Taiga, skirting the perimeter between the ancient woods and the mountains whose purple peaks had never seemed quite so bright as they do today. When the day is nearly over, the trees change from pine to hickory and walnut, the needles softening to the flat green of actual leaves – it is just as Rora promised.
Even as the day draws to an end and the sun sinks beneath the horizon, dropped and forgotten and probably a little lonely, she can see that this place is beautiful. It is awash in color like nothing she has seen before, reds and golds and oranges like maybe the sun came here to sleep when it disappeared each night, like it was fire (not leaves) that fluttered at the ends of their branchy moorings.
She is still beneath the fire of the trees when night falls and the stars come out again. She can barely see them through the leaves, but she doesn’t mind because she is used to a sky full of tree and branches - having been born in dense woods like these. In the dark she is like a ghost, flickering in and out of the shadow night casts, her passing marked only by the rustle of leaves underfoot and the snap of fallen branches. There is a strange weight in her face during those moments she is solid and blue, a guilt that is almost tangible. This will be the first time she will not return to her parents to sleep beside them, the first time she lied by not letting them know where she was going.
She didn’t like how heavy that knowledge felt sitting in her chest.
Ahead she can hear the wet sound of water lapping at uneven shores, of starlight caught and trapped in a million rippling reflections. She moves towards it easily, all legs and slender torso, made small and delicate by youth. She has seen the coast before, just once or twice, but this water is different. It doesn’t stink of salt and brine and seaweed. It seems cleaner, somehow, and she wonders if it is run-off from the mountains that are so nearby. Quietly, she wades in until the narrow of that delicate blue chest is submerged, until her skin is damp and dark as the night around her. With a smile, small and slight, etched like shadow into the pale of a velvet mouth, she lets loose the light that hums beneath her skin, pushing out pinpricks of bright no bigger than fireflies so that they swim in the water around her.
They swim in wide circles, around her and beside her, behind her – and she notices him finally, that dark silhouette nestled in the sand near where she had entered the lake. With a gasp she goes invisible, hidden by the dark and in the dark, no more than a reflection of the shadows that pooled between them. It is useless, really, because the lights still swim between them and water still bounces and ripples away from her body to mark where she stands. As soon as she realizes this she returns from the shadow, no longer hidden, but decidedly bashful. “You surprised me.” She tells him softly, in a voice like starlight, silver and sweet. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t asked. “I didn’t realize anyone was here.” She drifts a few steps closer, uncertain, and that dark mane spills around the delicate hollows of a dark and white face. Her lights swim toward him, slow and lazy like fish meandering beneath the surface, and then gather to pool between them until the night is hazy with a strange and soft twilight. “I am Luster,” starlight, again, and this time it even reaches the gleaming of those dark, solemn eyes, "who are you?"
It was another night, like any other. He lounged on the lake's bank like a sated panther, bangled hoof submerged in the water. It never hid it, the glittering chain around his ankle, but it still soothed him to have the water twisted around it. Nayl had left, a terrible catastrophe that had been. He had, of course, immediately sought sweet Karaugh after to calm his nerves. Though the only sweet about her was laced in her blood and in her devlishly coy ways. A faint smile tickled the corner of his mouth.
It wasn't long after dusk when slight movement pulled his eyes from the moon's weak reflection and to the bank a little ways down from him. A young girl waded in, water swaddling her sweetly up to her narrow chest. He blinked and lights came to life beneath the water, dancing and swimming around her like a living night sky of her very own.
He said nothing, only watched her intently, curiously, but she sensed his heavy gaze and noticed him lying still and watching her. With a little gasp, she vanished to shadow. Her lights still played with her, and ripples still tickled her, and she soon came back to light. He smiled warmly at her, dark eyes the color of shadows beneath the lake.
"You surprised me," she admitted shyly, her voice the soft twinkling of stars. Her watery fireflies came to glide circles between them and he watched them in quiet admiration. The night sky was rare in this place, a large part of why he was always hanging around this little lake where the canopies couldn't stretch all the way over it. Just a glimpse of the shy moon and the stars, but here she gave him the whole sky without meaning to.
"I am Luster, who are you?" Stillwater, he replied quietly, drinking in this tranquil moment and the peace her stars settled into him. His soft gaze met hers, a face of beautiful blue and cream. It is a pleasure to meet you, Luster. The honesty swirled meaningfully in his voice of smooth water.
Would you do it again, Luster? he murmured like a sad memory, deeply missing the open skies he was once used to. The stars never visit me here. He held still, an inky shadow on the damp bank, and yet managed to open himself in welcome with hope that the blue star would settle with him and shine her light in his darkness.
come down to the black sea swimming with me go down with me, fall with me, lets make it worth it
She can feel her surprise still prickling uncertainly beneath the mottled blue of her skin; can still feel the thump of her heart where it sits unsteady in her chest. It does slow, that uneven beating, does soothe and settle until even the muscles in her shoulders are soft and slack, until all the tension has bled away from the delicate lines of that quiet face. But there is still something else the prickles inside her, something like curiosity, delight.
“Stillwater,” she repeats, testing the weight of his name against the curl of her tongue – and then, flushing softly beneath the blue, “thank you.” She cannot help the way her eyes drift across his face, soft and unnoticeable like snowflakes caught in the wind. He has a quiet way about him, a stillness and a depth that feels as impenetrable as the dark that settles around them. She wonders about it, wonders why and where it comes from – wonders, too, if she has only imagined it. But she has even caught glimpses of this weight before, in the smiles shared between her parents when they think she isn’t watching, so it feels easier to recognize now.
Her brow furrows, uncertain, though the expression is invisible in the dark, invisible beneath the tangles of that dark corn-silk forelock. She wants to ask him more, wants to peer just a little deeper into those quiet eyes the color of night and deep-shadow, but her chest expands and those pale lips part, no sound comes out. He won’t tell you, and she knows it’s true, even without the pointed whispering of her sub-conscious, you’re just a stranger. So instead her mouth closes, her face darkens, and those quiet eyes fill with the bruises of indecision.
If only she could bury her light beside his heart in the quiet of his chest, maybe it would help.
Would you do it again, Luster? His voice is so low and lonely, like the wind when it gets lost and howling within the stones of her caves. For him, for the sad, she softens and tips her face forward, reflecting the pale silver of cold starlight in the blue of that dusky skin. At once the strange twilight fades and the black of night deepens around them – not so dark that they are invisible to one another again, but dark enough that when her lights explode like a million tiny stars caught in a snowglobe, it is beautiful. For a moment her eyes slide from his face to look around them, to start counting the flickering lights and then give up again with a small half-smile that tickles at her lips. Some of the lights are soft and watery, more like the glow of fireflies, but others are like hard points, bright and sharp and plucked from the velvet sky itself. They float past their faces and hang like birds in the sky, they sink into the ripple of the waves below and hide in the sand – some of them even find the leaves of the trees and swaddle themselves away, flickering on like a million heartbeats in the night.
But then her eyes do drift back to his face, to the quiet dark, to the strange stillness that makes her heart feel heavy where it hums in her chest. “There’s a place by a coast where I grew up, a stretch of beach – it feels like sitting on the edge of the world once everything is dark and there is only the stars staring back.” A pause and she looks away, flinching at the knot that ties and unties itself in the pit of her stomach. Homesick. “You should go see it sometime.” Her eyes drift back to him again, soft and brown, quiet even as they explore the lines and angles of his dark face. Then, softly, and against the muted mumbling of her instincts, “Are you alright, Stillwater?”
She was so expressive, the emotions playing so openly across her young face for him to see. Curiosity glittered in her little starry eyes. Uncertainty darkened them only a sweet shade more. Concern, too, swirled and stroked their depths like fingers drifting lazily through water. Concern for him, that was, as the drip of his sadness leaked across her and dampened those beautiful eyes.
Her mouth opened, a question ready, then closed. Instead, she carefully turned her focus to his request and a soft smile parted his dark lips at her easy compliance and caring nature.
She pulled the night's darkness closer to them, wrapping it around the two of them like a shared blanket. He watched her perfect little face as it all came to light, her stars blinking into wonderful existence and glowing across the lines and gentle curves there. Reflections shined and sparkled in her bright eyes, drawing the soft chestnut into a gently glowing amber. Reluctantly, he let his stare drift slowly away from her and drank in the sight of all her magic lights. Some were sharp and distinct, bold. Others burned faintly, soft and faded. And she did it all for him, a stranger in a strange place.
Her voice sank gently into the awed silence, bringing to mind memories of a place he once considered home: a beach, a cave, open skies and endless watery horizon. The depth of her understanding intrigued him, the way she viewed the world, and he found he wanted to see more things from her eyes sometime. He knew she wasn't from Sylva though, and perhaps he would never get the chance.
"You should see it sometime," she said quietly, a sadness now echoed in her voice as well. Perhaps she missed it too. But then why had she left? He studied her closely, still and solemn. Calm. He didn't speak, not yet, and was soon rewarded with more of her gentle care. "Are you alright, Stillwater?"
An attractive smile slowly softened his features, and he delved deep into those kind eyes, sank into their warmth and pulled it all around him. He dragged in a quiet inhalation, filling his lungs with her gentle glow. His dark muzzle dipped tentatively to her, barely a tap at her shoulder as his breath rolled over her lovely blue.
I think I'm beginning to feel better, he murmured low, pulling back enough to meet her eyes again with his smooth intensity. He didn't hold it long before releasing her and once again looking to her stars hanging around them. I lived on a beach too. In a deep and dark cave with the lull of the waves and the salt of the sea. That is probably a frightening place to live for a young girl, I would think. he commented, faintly probing her acceptance for such a lifestyle.
I have a cave here now. And the water is much gentler, smoother.
Where do you live, Luster? And will you be staying..
come down to the black sea swimming with me go down with me, fall with me, lets make it worth it
She cannot help but watch his face as his eyes find and settle against her flickering lights. He changes somehow, softening from that hollowed out sad to something gentle, something kinder. Or maybe she has only imagined it. But for as long as his attention is bound to the false-stars, her attention is bound to him – she had missed when his eyes had been bound to her face and her quiet and the reflection of light in the blue of her skin.
It is his quiet that she is drawn to, the sootiness of his dark face and the secrets she thinks she can see swimming in the backs of those shadow-dark eyes. She has seen eyes like these before, eyes with ancient storms trapped in their bellies. Her eyes drift across his face, following the hard line of his jaw to the sloping curve of his dark neck, and then further to a strong chest and long legs the color of night except for a ring of silver around one ankle. The metal is at once soft and bright, and in the quiet glow of the galaxy swimming around them, its looks as though it could be made from trapped starlight. For a moment her attention is held captive there as she traces each delicate link, but then he shifts where he stands and those dark eyes leap back to his face.
There is a smile waiting for her though, a curve of that dark mouth and suddenly there are butterflies trapped in her stomach and she is certain they don’t belong there. At first, when those deepwater eyes find hers in the dark, she turns away from their intensity, choosing instead to watch the reflection of her stars in the ripples of water between them. But a touch at her shoulder, there and gone before she’s even had a chance to notice how close they’re standing, tugs those wild eyes back to his face like fingers beneath her chin.
“I’m glad.” She says, quiet, so soft that even the stars twinkling above them can’t hear her. Her skin still prickles, still feels warm where his breath had touched, and a strange heat creeps outward from it. She is glad he will not be able to see it beneath the murky blue of her coat.
The night feels suddenly small, impossibly small, and it takes a moment to realize that she has deepened the night so that she can only just barely make out the lines of the dark face watching her. With an inaudible exhalation of breath, she flexes the magic in her bones and pushes the night back again. It complies, stubbornly, it must know how this wears on her, and her stars spin slowly like captured fireflies.
His voice is like a beacon in the dark and she is drawn to it once more, catching the story of his words with ears that fall delicately forward beneath the tangles of dark mane. “I do, too.” She says, and the surprise in her voice is almost as deep as the night. “I live in a cave,” she amends, quietly thoughtful, her eyes light and uncertain in the dark of his face, “though mine is in a forest much like this one. Very much like this one.” There is a smile on her lips now, delicate and coy, etched like starlight into the velvet of her mouth as she pauses to trace the trees around them. “It isn’t frightening if it is home.”
Home.
But suddenly this word feels wrong, dissonant and no longer entirely true. It was home, it had always been home, but something had changed and she could feel a piece of her heart humming its disagreement now. Her brow deepened with a furrow, her mouth drawn tight with the faint lines of uncertainty, and when she turns back to find his face, to fall into the midnight of his eyes, she thinks she understands why. Her skin quivers, almost imperceptibly in the dark, and she wants to reach out across the dark as he had to push her nose against the smooth and black of his shoulder. Instead, trying to push the frown from her lips, she says, “My family lives in a Forest on the mainland. That cave is the only home I’ve ever known.” Her eyes drop from his face for just a heartbeat, but return almost instantly when she finds there is nothing else to hold her gaze quite so easily. Then, quiet as always, and with a nose that drifts impossibly close to the heat of a black, satin neck, “Why did you leave your beach, Stillwater?”
How did you know it wasn’t home, anymore, she doesn’t say.
01-28-2017, 01:39 PM (This post was last modified: 01-28-2017, 01:39 PM by Stillwater.)
Stillwater
They played a game of dancing glances, shy and tentative. He studied her lovely face when she looked outward, and he felt her soft gaze on him when he turned to admire her stars. It was a balance of hesitant curiosity, neither one able to sate it completely and each trying not to stare to do so. She had such interesting perception in those deep eyes, but no matter how he looked, he couldn't find it and pluck it out; it was something she must gift to him on her own, he supposed.
He liked to look at her; try and trace where the white mottled and marbled into her soft blue. There wasn't a definite line through them, and so his eyes had to pass and slowly sketch through the intricate lace of color with careful attention. When he tried to meet her gaze, she rebounded from his and looked away, but his light touch coaxed them back and his smile deepened just a little.
The night closed further around them at that contact, casting them into more shadow as though he'd shorted her fuse, her power flickering with a shock of electricity to her system. Amusement and interest played in his eyes as he studied her in the darkness, tried to untangle her thoughts for himself. Was it fright or something else that broke that circuit?
She seemed to notice it, and pushed to relight their little candles before speaking again. So softly. A cave for a home, like him. He was pleased to hear it, though he hadn't put together why just then. Perhaps the thread in his chest that kept trying to coil around her, pull her in closer. Whatever it meant, he could admit that he wanted her closer, wanted to see her again after this. His curiosity could not be sated in a single fragment of time.
"It isn't frightening if it is home," she said, and her expression was triggered into confusion. He watched her steadily, already thinking he might know why and aching to reach out and smooth that uncertainty from her brow. Would his touch settle her nerves or heighten them? Another question without an answer, for now. More curiosities the longer she remained. No, a single night was not enough to unbury the things he now wished to reveal for the both of them.
His black velvet wandered towards her shoulder again, as though tugged to answer the touch she denied herself, but he stopped. Whiskers and a warm breath was all he gave this time, before slowly retreating.
"My family lives in a Forest on the mainland. That cave is the only home I've ever known." Those honey-brown eyes slid away from him again, only to return a moment later. He remained still, so very still, as her nose crept closer to his neck. Breathing slowly, he focused on her clinging warmth tickling just a small part of his larger, shadowed coat. "Why did you leave your beach, Stillwater?" she asked quietly.
His skin altered slightly at her nearness, at the warmth spreading in his eyes before he closed them off from her, smoothing to a flawless satin black. Now, he definitely wanted to touch her, let her truly cling to him. But he shook his head slowly to himself, swallowed that creeping hunger as he busied himself with answering her, forced it to reverse back to flattened hair. Not this one, he liked this one.
A wicked witch plucked me from home, he said with an easy smile, his deeply alluring eyes opening to hold her again with only the barest new gleam to them. He said it flat and true, as though he were telling a tale or perhaps the truth. He liked to leave that distinction for her own choosing. Placed me here, with this collar at my foot because she knew I would just turn back home once she left. Because I don't follow orders so well," he added with a light chuckle. Like a prince from a story, captured and made to obey. A wicked witch that was not so villainous, and certainly not hideous. Still wicked in her way, but only a small part to this tale he weaved for her. A tale of truth.
It is a secret, though, he whispered low.
He gave no hint to the loss this time, to the bitterness that had grown so muted with time and with Nayl's departure. This was home now, and Djinni had righted her wrong in a way, created him a cave of wonder and comfort. He still did not have his freedom, his liberty to move about freely wherever and whenever he wished, do as he pleased, but that new addition had soothed him for a while more. Much like this starchild was.
So now this is home. Perhaps it always will be. His voice trailed off, and he considered something that might break this spell between them. He turned his eyes away from her, locked them to the gently waving surface of the water. Then, carefully, he whispered and held his breath for her answer.
Somehow it feels more like home now that you have come.
Does that make me crazy, Luster?
come down to the black sea swimming with me go down with me, fall with me, lets make it worth it
She is quiet beside him, fighting the way her bruised eyes always seem to drift back to that dark, handsome face. Her chest is in turmoil, humming and thrumming and aching for a closeness that seems only just barely out of reach each time he brings his nose to rest just above the mottled blue, and then suddenly eons further when he shifts away again and she is left with only an echo of confusion and loneliness. She is quick to blame it on homesickness, quick to blame it on the fact that she should be home and tucked against the warmth of her parents instead of out in this strange night.
It does not even matter to her that she can barely believe her own lie.
He does it once more, and she cannot help but glance up at him with soft, wounded eyes because he must know, he must know how easily he is unraveling that treacherous heart in her chest. He’s so close and she can feel the velvet of his whiskers tickling at the blue of her dark and delicate skin. It trembles without her permission, a hundred invisible ripples as though he has tossed a stone into the ocean of her dark and bottomless blue. She had looked away again, flushing, relieved by the little space between them and the coolness of the night, but when he pulls away again, she is drawn back and left wondering why.
He is silent and still for a long moment, and in this moment she watches his face darken and close off to her – if only a little, and she wonders at that, too. She is about to call him back to her, to pull him from the depths of his thoughts with a nudge to his neck when the stillness breaks and he returns to her again. A wicked witch plucked me from home, he says, and for a moment she is wholly disoriented by the strangeness of the confession. At first, and for a long, tremulous moment, she wonders if he is teasing her, pushing her back with a wall safely between them to protect him from her gentle prying. For some reason this notion crushes her, and when she eases back and looks up at him, it is with quiet and dark and bruised eyes filled with endless apologies.
Except-
The smile on his lips, oh that smile, it isn’t cruel and it isn’t sharp and there is no mocking anywhere to be found. “Stillwater?” She asks, easing closer again, her brow furrowed so deeply that those dark eyes are nearly hidden beneath it. But he continues a second later, and chuckles, and she finds that somehow this impossible story feels like truth.
Her eyes drop instantly from his face, horrified, to trace the smooth links of silver wound like starlight around his leg. Without thinking, without considering anything beyond the ache in her chest and the terrible certainty in his low voice, she closes the distance between them. Her nose might’ve brushed against his shoulder or his chest, she doesn’t notice if it does, but it certainly touches the dark skin of his ankle when she takes the chain between her teeth and tests its strength. For how completely delicate it sits against his skin, soft and supple like woven spider-silk, she finds there is no give between her teeth, no frailty when she tugs against it.
When she releases it, dismayed, she is of course standing so close now that as she lifts her face back to him, her nose bumps the strong curve of a dark and heavy jaw. She should have apologized, should have fallen away from the closeness the moment her heart started racing in her chest, but when she lifted her eyes just a few inches higher to find the dark blue-grey of his, she found herself totally and completely immobile. So instead of skittering away to give him back his distance, she finds solace in the heat of his dark neck, shifting to rest her chin in the hollow above the line of his shoulder. “That is a terrible secret to tell a stranger.” She says finally, wincing at the heaviness of her heart where it sits like stones in the pit of that delicate blue chest. “I don’t understand, why would she do this to you?” There is, admittedly, still a part of her mind that is slowly trying to believe this storybook truth, but between the impervious chain and the weight of his dark, she believes he is being honest. Then, in a voice that is equal parts sad and indignant, she says, “Of course you would just go back home, who wouldn’t?”
Even despite the closeness, despite the way she stands tucked almost possessively against the dark of his shoulder, her heart still roars in her chest. She doesn’t understand why anyone would have bound him somewhere, how they could chain him to this dark and let the softness rot from his face beneath endless nights of starless skies. Sighing, and it is a sad sound, a broken sound, she pushes off from his shoulder, pausing only briefly to touch her nose to the hollow at the corner of his mouth, and then continues up the beach for a few strides. She feels suddenly restless, suddenly unhappy, and she cannot stand to look at that chain gleaming around his leg any longer. She would sever it with a blade if only she thought her light could touch it!
Turning back to face him (even now, already, she does not like how it feels to be away from him) her eyes settle on his face, still dark, still bruised, but the hints of anger are new in them. “It isn’t right.” She says finally, and she isn’t sure why because he knows this perhaps the best out of anyone. She takes a few steps back towards him until there is once more only a foot of dark distance between them. She feels suddenly tired – though the only sign is the soft droop of her ears and the firefly stars that flicker out quietly one by one until only a third still remain.
But when he turns from her, when his eyes disappear out in the rippling black of the lake, the words that spill from his lips sooth the thrumming in her chest, and she is soft for him once more. Does that make me crazy, Luster? There is a smile on her mouth now, soft and supple and the light of it soothes the tension from every dip and hollow in that dark, stormy blue. Maybe it is her weariness the emboldens her, or the weight of the terrible truth shared between them, but she reaches out across the dark to him to touch the pale of her tremulous pink lips to the dark of his curving jaw. “You are almost definitely crazy,” she tells him in a whisper, still smiling that impossibly soft smile, “but it’s okay because I think I must be, too.”
Each time he hesitated, each time he pulled away before touching her, those soulful eyes met his with such a look that took his breath away. He wasn't sure he should touch her, wasn't sure she would want it. Would it frighten her away to be so close with a stranger? A much older stranger. He did not want to make her run. But that look in her eyes.. was as if she were confused and hurt when he wouldn't touch her, as he left her warmth and abandoned her.
She walked up to him, her eyes on his silvered ankle, and her velvet barely whispered across his bicep as she dipped down to it, once again stealing his breath. She surveyed his chain and his muscles stiffened. He hadn't meant to draw her attention so fully to it, didn't like when people noticed it. But he was frozen in place as her delicate ivory teeth clamped and tugged at it, trying to test its strength. He didn't speak, didn't tell her it was useless. Didn't admit that he was touched she even tried at all, that it bothered her so. He swallowed, and watched her intently in silence. But he didn't like her growing upset.
Luster.. he whispered, trying to turn her attention from it. But she was focused, and driven, and when at last she let it hang at his ankle again, she straightened and tapped the line of his jaw. He grit his teeth as a fire immediately ignited bright in his dark eyes. His gaze locked on her, slowly tracing the soft curves of her pretty face. He was on the verge of losing something, but he wasn't sure what. He could do nothing but trail his way back up and stare into those liquid-honey eyes. The short distance between them charged with an electricity even her stars couldn't vibrate to.
She broke their gaze -but not the tension- as her petite head came to rest at his shoulder. He released a long, slow breath, almost not even registering what she was saying, that she was speaking. "That is a terrible secret to tell a stranger." He thought maybe he should apologize then, that his story had struck her so painfully. But he was rendered silent, his mind lost in the feel of her against him. Not in lust as he should be used to expecting, it was the nature of his beast after all, but in..comfort maybe. For him, or for her, he wasn't sure which. Perhaps it was meant to soothe them both.
His lips parted, about to speak when she moved again with a sigh. She pulled away, touched her mouth so near his and set his heart suddenly tripping. It shouldn't affect him so. She was so young, nearly a child. No, more of a teen. Like a teenage human ten years his junior. He was experienced, and she was naive. He was.. suddenly confused by the turn things were taking. She stripped away and paced further down the bank.
Luster.. he tried again, feeling a strong urge to soothe her frustration, not wanting her to think on it any more. Eyes bright with anger turned to meet his. "It isn't right."
Luster, he coaxed softly, knowing he had done this to her, turned her mood so sour. Don't fret, please. I am fine, but why would she care about that? He stepped back as if to show her all of him, I am whole, I am here. This is nothing. He shrugged, and gave her a gentle, boyish grin. He reached for her as she returned to him, no longer afraid of scaring her off with his intimacy. She had taken that step first, and now he felt it was safe to at least match it. So he matched her stride, met her halfway and lightly brushed his velvet along her cheek.
He was slowly forgetting she was so young, now she was only small. Only petite and delicate. She said he wasn't crazy -no, she said he was definitely crazy, but that she was too. He chuckled softly, a rolling sound of unintentional seduction, as he brushed a strand of hair from her face. She was causing such strange things to stir inside him. Such new things. But he caught the subtle droop to her cupped ears, the faintest slump in her shoulders and weight on her spine.
Shhh, he murmured into her cheek, come to bed, sweet starshine. He tensed a moment, realizing what he said, how she might take it, and amended it softly. Come rest in my home. I will remain outside until you wake. Because he could be a gentleman, because he would guard her and let her sleep peacefully in the closest thing to home she had just then. And if he had to, he would see her off in the morning, safely to the border and to her freedom.
come down to the black sea swimming with me go down with me, fall with me, lets make it worth it
She misses the first time his says her name – not entirely, there is some part of her that traps that sound of Luster from the dark of his lips and buries it in the thrumming of her chest – but enough that it does not pull her attention from the silver chain against his skin. She misses the second time, too, misses the way his eyes feel when they turn soft and molten and spill like water over every dip and hollow of her delicate blue face.
She doesn’t miss when they settle against the brown of her eyes, though, because suddenly her moorings are cut loose and she is floating through the night, through space, and there is no air left to breath.
Her lungs burn, her face burns, her skin burns and she finds she has to turn away from him, just for a moment, until her heart stops its treacherous struggling and she can remember how to breathe again. When she turns back, when, It isn’t right, sails through the blue of her lips, she finds that the tight in her chest, that the sudden weightlessness and the stirring in her belly is almost bearable now.
Luster. He says again, for a third and final time, and her eyes sweep up to his face, bright and hurt and uncertain, but wholly his. I am fine. But something about this confession coaxes new sad, new frustration into the well of her chest. “Of course you are.” She says in a small, silver voice, easing closer still because the distance between them feels like the distance between the lonely stars. Of course he was fine, whole, unbroken by the life that had been dropped into his lap – a life she wholly believed he did not deserve. It is because he is better, because he is everything, because he can find solace in the still waters of the lake and in the coolness of lonely stars, because when he looks at her and lets her drift so close so warm against the smooth of his black skin, he believes it is, somehow, enough. But it isn’t enough, not for him. The bruises of her eyes trail softly across his face, and though they lack to sharp fire that burns in his, there is something deep and dark in hers that does not begin to scratch the surface of the longing that hums in her chest. “It doesn’t feel like nothing.”
He smiles at her again, gentle and boyish and something crumbles in her chest. When she returns to him, folding the distance between them in half and then half again, he doesn’t hesitate to join her, stepping easily forward to push his nose against her cheek. The gesture is so kind, so gentle, and she cannot help the way her breath stutters and hitches at the unexpected contact. “Stillwater?” She whispers his name like a question, soft and tremulous, peering up at him with eyes as dark and lonely as the aching night sky. He chuckles and she is molten beneath his touch, fever-bright and beautiful in that quiet, uncertain way she watches him. “Stillwater.” She breathes again, not a question this time, closing her eyes when his lips pushed aside one of the tangles of her dark forelock.
He notices though, the way her body ached with weariness and sleep and something much darker, and when he pushes his mouth against her cheek to paint whispers across her skin, she eases closer. “Stillwater,” she whispers a third time, one final time, easing under his chin and under his neck so that she can stand curled in the waiting hollow of his dark chest. Through the heat of his dark skin she can feel the beating of his heart, the humming rhythm of a quiet pulse. It is mindless when she pushes her mouth against his skin, reflexive when her pale and bright lips trace careful shapes in the smooth black. When she finally answers him, it is in a quiet voice, an uncertain voice, and she is glad he cannot see the woundedness of her delicate face while she is pressed against his chest like this. “I’d rather stay with you.” Then, realizing he might be wanting space from her, that this might be an effort to reclaim some of the distance he must be so terribly used to, she pulls away from his chest, disentangling herself from his neck and his chin and the long tangles of mane that had been draped across her skin. She is still close, still greedy, but she shrugs back and apologetic, lifting eyes like dark bruises bashfully to the plains of that dark, handsome face. “This would be the first time I ever slept alone,” she amends quickly, quietly, dragging her eyes from his face to peer out into the deep and starry dark, “I’m usually with my family.”
There are still butterflies in her stomach, a hundred impossible creatures with wings as soft as snowflakes and they are tying knots and tearing holes and leaving wounds in her heart because everything hurts, everything aches, and she doesn’t want to breathe. “I,” she starts, she tries, and her eyes settle somewhere high above him, lost in dark and silver and the loneliest stars, “I don’t want to sleep just yet.” If she sleeps now, buries herself in the dark home of his cave, it will be morning when she opens her eyes again. When morning does come, she will have to leave again, to reassure her parents that she is safe and sorry and wholly fine. But she wonders how they will ever believe her past this new weight, this new sorrow that settles like night over her face.
Her eyes sink back to his face, quiet and dark and sad, and she aches to return to the warmth of his chest, the thrumming of that beautiful heart. But she is still, immobile, tied to the ground upon which she stands. Instead, quietly, barely able to shape the words she needs beneath the weight of this confession, “I have to leave in the morning, Stillwater.” A pause and she feels heartsick. “I’m sure my family is worried.” She can’t help it when she reaches across the distance again to touch her lips to the curve of his jaw, to trace that line all the way down to the soft hollow at the corner of his mouth. “So I would rather not sleep yet,” another pause and her nose drops back to her chest as she turns from him stand nearby at the edge of his quiet lake, “I’m not ready for it to be morning.” For several long moments she watches what remain of her stars as they bob and float across the surface, skimming the black-water like lost fireflies. Then, looking back over her shoulder at him with the hint of a smile etched carefully into the pale pink of shy mouth, "You called me starshine."
He loved the way she couldn't hold his gaze for long. This thing between them grew, glared so brightly it blinded her and forced her face from his. But for that moment, her eyes would glitter with wonder. They would shine with eager uncertainty and her breath would halt in her breast. It made him want to whisper her name again, gently guide her over that teetering edge to so many things unknown to her. She is a child, he tried to remind himself. But it was useless, dashed away and unheeded like the rest of his problems. It didn't matter just then, and so it was ignored.
"It doesn't feel like nothing," she responded, but he didn't think she spoke of his captivity any longer, standing there with that look in her eyes. Stillwater? she asked in a whisper as he pressed his lips to her cheek, uncertainty gliding across her face. Her warmth glowed beneath his gentle touch like a halo, his careful stoking of embers she didn't know she had, though it was unintentional. Stillwater.. she breathed, a little more sure as he brushed the hair from her face. Each time his name slid passed her lips, he too grew more certain; certain he should stop, certain he didn't want to, certain he should not let her leave, certain he should not let her stay.
Certain that he wanted her to.
It was not surprising for her to be drawn to him. It was expected, even. He was made unnaturally attractive to lure them in, to make them crave his touch of death. Be wary of handsome strangers, they used to say. Be wary of still water. The truth lie before them, and yet they were oblivious to it. Heedless to the warnings. Unaware of the danger that kissed their necks so sweetly. His lure coiled around her, too, just the same. Just as expected.
But unexpected were the quiet stirrings within himself.
He looked at her, and did not think of killing her.
He looked at her, and thought of protecting her. Treasuring her. A foreign concept to him. Unnatural and unreal. He was a solitary creature. He ventures to feed, he returns to his darkness. It had always been that way.
It should frighten him. It should anger him. He should be throwing her away from him, as he had done with Nayl, not pulling her in closer as he offered his home to her, his bed to her. Stillwater, she whispered again, sliding in closer, tucking herself beneath his chin and against his hard chest. Karaugh had done something similar, the thought rippled faintly across the surface of his mind, but he didn't even think of taking her the same way.
Her lips traced delicately along his skin and his breath lodged in his throat. He was helpless to simply watch her, his pulse ticking a little swifter as he drew in this new experience, soaked it deeply into his soul. Djinni had touched him, shallow and almost friendly. Karaugh had raked herself against him, possessive and taunting. Nayl would not even make the barest contact. Carli saw him as a conquest, a game. But Luster..
Luster touched with honest affection for him. She was the only one to do so. Perhaps the only one to feel that way.
"I'd rather stay with you."
Her truth sang to him. Of course she would, but this time it was not because of his attraction. This time someone actually meant it. That would change one day, her affection would change when she learned more of him, but for tonight it was perfect and true. She moved to disengage their embrace, but he pulled her back in. He wasn't ready to let this go, to let her go. His heart thundered hard but steady against her. Certain.
"I don't want to sleep just yet."
Good, neither did he. Luster, he whispered softly, but he immediately forgot what he was going to say, lost in the feel of her again. I have to leave in the morning, she said quietly. He tensed, and then he did pull away from her then, slowly, painfully. This whole thing was so temporary, wasn't it? Of course it was, they were all temporary for him. Always. They only lived long enough until he decided otherwise.
"You called me starshine," she pointed out with a faint smile. His solemn quiet eased a little as he pressed a smile to his lips. Temporary, but perfect. You caught me, he said lightly, his heart heavy.
Come home with me, he said, coming to brush his mouth across her cheek again. Come home, and we will stay awake. He was genuine and sweet, without secret agendas or hidden innuendos. They could sink into his dark hollow, listen to the trickle of a spring or just talk. Whatever she wanted. She would be gone by morning, and maybe she would never be back. It was best that way.
Best that he was a happy memory. handsome stranger..
Not a nightmare. Not a warning. still water..
Come home, Luster, he said one last time, finally turning to guide her up the slope behind them, only a short number of paces from the hidden slit between large boulders. His lips pressed to her shoulder, his cooled eyes held hers. He offered her the den of a secret prisoner king.
come down to the black sea swimming with me go down with me, fall with me, lets make it worth it
