[private] in your eyes, i see something to believe in; brinly

[Illum]

ILLUM

He never left the dark.

Even when, one morning, the sun remembered what it meant to shine and new light fell over a world scorched by evernight, it never reached him. It was more than being hidden by the shadows beneath the giant taiga forest, more than the dark his family had inherited over generations from his father. It didn’t stay because he had asked it to, not even because he had demanded that it do so. It stayed, though he did not understand why, because it was him. Some vital piece that had evolved or devolved in the everdark, something that had grown and changed inside him.

All these many months later - so many that it could be entire years for how well he kept track of time - he still did not know if the change that had happened inside him was the product of festering dark, of the wickedness that had been created inside him, or if it was an evolution spurred by the light of love too fleeting to hold onto. Had he fallen deeper, or had she given him something else to carve the dark inside his chest.

It seemed a fools curiosity, and yet his dark before had been entire. It had been the absence of light, the absence of anything good.
This was something different. This dark had starlight and stardust, had moonlight and milky ways. It was incomplete in a way that made him wonder if her light had reached through some crack in his chest to infect the wickedness inside him.

To heal it.
But he could not be healed, and he knew this.

His eyes are almost entirely gold now, that ring of silver just a thin band of light around his pupil as his gaze wanders through the forest. He is looking for nothing, looking because his mind is a maze of thoughts that get harder and harder to navigate every day, every second. A maze that always finds him at dead ends that leave him simmering in a fury that rises so easily inside him these days. It is the feeling of being purposeless, of being more when he is still nothing. Of being lost.

There has never been any place he belonged, though he had chosen to haunt the same forests his family had picked as home. His place, but never somewhere he belonged. But he had always known who he was, even in his twisted wretchedness he had no doubt of what it was that existed inside him. The temper and the fury, the way he liked to corrupt in the very same way he had been corrupted. To take things that were never meant for him, things better than he could ever be. But even those urges are quieter now, drifting through the galaxies that swirl around him and trace starry patterns over skin just a shade too indigo to be the black of empty shadow.

This change is an unraveling inside his chest, a new fear that makes him burn cold and still with the fury of smoldering stars - and when he finds those eyes burning brighter than they have any right to, hard and brown and beautiful, it ignites this new dark inside him. It is like finding a mirror, like finding himself. He can go nowhere else but to her, though he chooses to do it in a lazy way to conceal the way he wants to know the exact shade of her smoldering gaze, to know what lies deeper.

He moves between the shadows, teleporting between steps until he is close enough that the night is something that spills from him to wash over her skin, to claim her within the limits of the starry dark that follows him always. But he is deliberate in its creation this time, deliberate in the dark that makes her all but disappear, in the stars that drift around him and expand to fill this place in the forest. He draws closer, and there is a moment where it seems like he might touch her, might try to see if he can build more of that fire inside her eyes. He reaches for her, and his eyes flare with the silver until the gold is almost entirely vanished beneath it.

And then they are both elsewhere in a place where the forest is even deeper, the shadows thick even before the swell of his night reaches them. He doesn't try to touch her, doesn't do anything but drift away a few curious steps to take in their new surroundings before turning to her once again. "I didn't feel like sharing." He says, as if that is any kind of an explanation at all. He is something hazy and indistinct in this place, and clouds of stardust solidify beneath the lowest branches of the trees above them, bright because the sun does not reach here. "I'm sure we didn't go far." He tells her, because he is a liar and this fury is still ice burning inside his chest. "Wherever this is." 

But the air here is notably cooler, and the way the sun barely reaches them tells him this place must lie somewhere near the heart of the forest. Will she be afraid? He drifts closer again, studying her molten expression and the heat in her eyes that something very wretched inside him longs to feel the ire of. There is something of a smile on his face, something subtle in the gleam of his eyes and the unevenness of his dark mouth when he says, "My name is Illum." As though he cannot feel the chill creeping into his bones, as though he is immune to the sensation of being watched from the dark. "Seems like a nice place for a walk, no?"

@Brinly

[Brinly]

Brinly

There had been a moment when her eyes had locked with his.

Like twin stars, only they shone a burnt-gold, and for a solitary moment she is mesmerized enough that she hardly notices the star-dusted cloak of darkness that shadows him, or the way his very skin seems to be made of the night sky.

He is striking, but it isn’t the color of his eyes that froze her in place, though.

It was the way he seemed to look through her, as if he had torn apart every carefully crafted layer, peeling her back to find the raw, wounded, and weak thing that cowered beneath the surface. There is a moment of relief, at this idea of being seen—a spark of hope at the idea of not having to play a part, to not have to be so careful with who she lets close. But it is fleeting, and reflexively, she fortifies every barrier in response to the way her defenses had ever so briefly lowered.

By the time he is in front of her she has already gone rigid and tense, her blood simmering beneath her skin as she wars with hoping he touches her so that she might watch him recoil in pain, yet all the while praying that her irascible demeanor would be enough to keep him at bay. Hurting is never her intention.

The sharpness in her eyes says everything that her tongue does not; a silent warning, a hidden promise that he would not like what he finds should he come closer.

It is only when the stars and the night spill from him and onto her that she falters a little in her guarded stance, the alarm reflecting in her eyes as they flash to catch his, questioning and confused. The night cloaks her, wrapping around her in such a strange, nearly silken way. It feels cool in comparison to her scorching skin, and she wants to lean into it, to see if it becomes more tangible or if she would once again be disappointed to find the only things that can bear to touch her are things that cannot recognize touch at all.

He draws closer, and before she can wrench herself backwards (she always wants to watch them burn, and yet, when faced with the decision, she never lets them) they are suddenly somewhere else, somewhere darker.

The swift teleportation left her breathing rushed and ragged, with a mixture of adrenaline and fear that quickly caves into anger flooding her veins. Her blood feels hotter, and if she had been at all capable of controlling heat in any way, she is sure she would have unleashed it now.

“Sharing?” The word is flung from her tongue the way a cobra might spit venom, wheeling to follow him with her eyes as he surveys their surroundings. She is all at once fascinated by what he has done but equal parts outraged; thrilled at the idea of having him in this pitch black to herself (because parts of her are still so very much her mother’s daughter) while also livid that she is so clearly helpless in comparison to him. “I am not an object to be hoarded or shared,” she continues defiantly, but this time when he closes the space between them she does not step back, though his vicinity makes her nervous.

Everything in her stance, her stare, the very air around her tells him not to touch her.

It portrays itself as a command, in the tight lines of her face and the coiled tautness of muscle beneath her auburn skin, and the way her slender ears tilt back towards a wild mess of black mane.  She meets his molten stare with her smoldering own, her jaw clenching tight, but she finds that she cannot hold his gaze for long. She angles her face away, afraid that he will see through it all; see that the anger is a mask for fear, though she thinks he cannot discern why she is afraid.

That she is afraid for him, not of him.
Afraid of seeing those golden eyes widen in surprise and then pain when she burns him, and watching his face contort to anger and accusation when he realizes she had been the one to inflict the injury.

“Brinly,” she counters flatly to his introduction, forcing a tone of indifference because she finds the way that her insides twist at his slight smile to be unsettling. “Did you not get enough of walking in the dark during the eclipse?”

— if i’m on fire, you’ll be made of ashes too —

@Illum

[Illum]

ILLUM

She is glacial in some way he cannot yet name, except that her ice burns hotter than any fire he has ever encountered - hotter even than the one that left him marked and then healed again by an angel. At the surface he thinks he sees glimpses of something she is so schooled in hiding. The flash of ire and fury, her dark eyes a brand that scald him. But then in the next moment, he blinks, and she is someone else entirely, a painting of herself, one single captured moment frozen carefully and worn like a mask. He decides he must stop blinking, must miss nothing.

“Sharing.” He confirms, and the venom in her voice stokes a heat in his silver eyes that he can only just barely keep reined in. She makes it impossible to be still, and yet to pace a circle around where she stands feels as though it would give away too much of this frustration smoldering inside him. So he pauses, though it feels like his bones might break with the effort, and settles the full weight of that burning silver gaze against her dark, furious face. “You are half right - certainly not an object as far as I can tell.” His eyes wander, but only to trace the pattern of muscle in her jaw and around her mouth, trace them for a subtle tightening of building frustration before returning to settle on her eyes again. “And half wrong. For an evening, you are mine. Or I am yours, if you prefer it. I have no objections to being hoarded.” He doesn’t mean to, doesn’t even realize he is capable of it, but there is a flare of near laughter in the silver resonance of his eyes, a deep curve in the line of his mouth as it lifts at the corner.

He does not miss the way she holds herself though, the contained aggression, the implication of danger should he move any closer. But he does not see her fear, just her fury, and so he forgets to gentle himself to her, to be someone he is only ever just barely capable of being. He moves close enough that he can feel the heat radiating from her skin, close enough that he could reach out and touch his lips to the lines of muscle that jump along her cheeks as she frowns at him. But he is clever enough to realize that this heat is something more, that when he comes just mere millimeters from the brown of her shining skin, his own prickles uncomfortably. “A pleasure, Brinly.” He says, his voice something low as he takes a step back to drag his eyes from her skin and back to her delicate face again.

His edges are even more indistinct when he steps back from her, and if he cared to stop and wonder why, he might realize it was a reflection of the sudden uneasiness taking hold inside his chest. “No,” he says, studying her a moment longer with eyes changing from silver to gold, “I am the dark. It is the light I grow weary of.” When he turns from her to look searchingly into the dark forest, it is only to get a sense of which direction it was that he stole her from. “However, I do believe I lied to you.” There is no remorse in his voice, no apology as he waits for her to come to him, wills her to from a place that is more need than arrogance. Maybe hers is a fire that warms him even at his darkest depths. “I think it may actually be a very long way back. My mistake.” There is not an ounce of shame in the subtle smile on his mouth as he glances back in the stardust dark to find her. “It seems I’ll be yours the entire night.”

[Brinly]

Brinly

He is infuriating in a way that she is not accustomed to, and that alone is enough to almost make her forget how irritated she is at having been taken. The way that he meets her fire with such a cool indifference only seems to stoke the flames hotter, and there is a part of her that so desperately wants to see what his icy stare would think of her heat. His dark calm feels like a challenge, as if he can read her and already knows her secret, and he is daring her to act on it.

She wants to—of course she wants to. But she is chained to the idea of not wanting to hurt him, stranger or not, and so instead she does nothing but simmer in silence.

He is watching her just as carefully as she is watching him, and it is such an unsettling thing to be studied so closely that she finds herself even more on edge than usual. She hadn’t thought that was possible, given she is never at ease in anyone's presence, but something about the way he keeps stepping closer, keeps those silver eyes fixed to her own, has her nerves nearly pouring over the top. “You don’t want me,” she tells him bluntly, though she offers no explanation, but she shifts away from him, maintaining a safe distance between him and her dangerous skin.  “And I assure you, you don’t want to be mine.” She does nothing to disguise the bitterness to her tone, but does not tell him why such a thing is not even possible.

You are mine, or I am yours, he says, and even though those very words are like needles spearing her skin she chooses to ignore it, thinks that he will surely grow bored of her attitude and her games, and they will both go their separate ways when this evening is over. And if he doesn’t?

She is sure just one touch will be enough.

She says nothing when he says that he is the dark, though there is a glimmer of curiosity. It would not surprise her to learn that he is the night made living, given his appearance and the way he had so easily whisked her away. There must be other powers that he harbors, too, and if not for her own stubbornness she would have asked him, but she has already committed to the idea of making this evening as miserable as possible for him, and so she chooses to not give him the satisfaction of being intrigued.

He turns to her, then, his silver eyes reaching for her in the dark, and her heart seems to clench in her chest at what he tells her.

It seems I’ll be yours the entire night, he says, and for a moment her armor falls to hear him say that again—I am yours.  Her face is blank of all the usual tension, the fire seeming to flicker and fade, and in its ashes it leaves only confusion. He says it so casually, as if it could be real. As if he could be hers—would be hers, even if just for tonight. She catches that hint of a smile on his mouth, at the stardust that is still suspended around him, and she wonders what it would be like if he were hers. If she could touch his skin, if she could press her mouth to his strong shoulder or feel what his body might be like tangled with hers. If she would be content living in the dark as long as she had his stardust and moon-silver eyes, and she thinks that yes, she could be, because for once in her life she would not be alone.

Reality intrudes on her fleeting fantasy, though.
She is assaulted with the image of her touch burning into his skin, of angry red marks scarring that beautiful night sky he wears like a cloak.
She is reminded, all too abruptly, of why what he says could never be true—not for them, not for her with anyone.

“You,” the word twists from her tongue, ragged and broken and infuriated, and she feels the heat once again crawling across her skin, pulling the lines of her face taut and sharp once more. “Are not mine,” and this time the fury and anxiety she had been fighting to keep contained at last spills over, only instead of pouring out like water they erupt as flames from beneath her skin.

The fire licks up her legs, seemingly eating away at the rich bay coat that has struggled to keep the heat in her veins captive all these years. The flames flicker across her shoulders and down her back, and when they at last burn away the raven-black mane and tail they leave behind what looks like glittering embers.

She is, finally, swallowed by what has lived inside of her for decades, but she cannot even find it in herself to feel afraid.

It is a blessing, she thinks.
A gift, to finally look just as dangerous on the outside as she is on the inside.
Her skin is finally, at long last, a living warning sign instead of a cruel trap.

When it is over, when she has burned away the darkness with the fire that has now consumed her she looks at him, breathless and tense. There is a hollowness to her dark eyes, a shadow that not even her flames can touch, and she says to him quietly, nearly defeated, “No one will ever be mine.”

— if i’m on fire, you’ll be made of ashes too —

@Illum