i'm just a silhouette, sixteen

[camellia]

she loves like sleep to the freezing

It is not like her to stray so far from Tephra.
Or, more specifically, it is not like her to stray so far from her sisters.

And yet, here she is. Alone.
And whatever trepidation she might have felt for venturing so far from the safe circle of her sisters is tempered by the winter she can already taste on the air outside of Tephra.

(She is a child of winter, but she has never been able to fault the other seasons for how deeply her sisters love them.)

The cold does not reach Tephra and, though she would never admit it, it pains her so to be without it. It is not mere delight that spasms through her when she catches the scent of winter on the air here. It is something deep and visceral that she feels snake its way through the marrow of her bones.

She has never known any love greater than this.

She wanders now into the meadow, her head held high.
(It is no accident that each of the daughter’s personality reflects the season to which she has laid claim).
Camellia is cold, but she is not untouchable.

She draws in a long breath, surveys the landscape rolling away from her.
She catches sight of him, quite by accident, and finds herself moving toward him without making the conscious decision to do so.

“Where does all the light come from?” she asks and tilts her fine head.

Camellia

@[sixteen]