08-30-2021, 11:48 PM
BUT I HOPE I NEVER LOSE THE BRUISES THAT YOU LEFT BEHIND
She is so different from the last time they had crossed paths.
There is nothing in particular that had happened; nothing that she could pinpoint that hardened the light-heartedness of her youth, no significant trauma that had shadowed her sunshine. She just knows that she feels cold, almost indifferent. She watches the things happening around her with little interest, her vividly bright eyes somehow managing to appear flat, with none of the spark that had once burned there. She had thought finally being able to shift — finally being able to grasp that part of herself that always seemed so out of reach — would miraculously be the piece that allowed everything else to fall into place, but nothing had worked that way.
Instead, it seemed to only throw into sharp relief how much bigger the picture truly was, and it was nowhere near being complete.
She sees him in the meadow, and for the first time in she cannot even recall how long, something flickers to life in her chest.
“Voro,” she says his name, but she can feel it turn to ash on her tongue. She is close enough now to see the desolation that reflected in his eyes, the way he seemed weighed by an overall tiredness. As if the dark of the eclipse had leaked into the pores of him, settling into his bones. Her heart twinges, just once, because isn’t she part of the reason he is here? Her memory is foggy, but she is sure she had promised something about how Beqanna would be everything he dreamed—that it would be different than where he had come from.
She had been so focused on her own issues that she had not thought to seek him out in the eclipse, to see how he was fairing.
The guilt that floods her veins extinguishes whatever flame had tried to ignite.
She stops a few paces from him, worry clouding her face before she smooths it away with a small smile. “Do you remember me?” And she can’t help but to think that maybe it would be easier if he did not.
There is nothing in particular that had happened; nothing that she could pinpoint that hardened the light-heartedness of her youth, no significant trauma that had shadowed her sunshine. She just knows that she feels cold, almost indifferent. She watches the things happening around her with little interest, her vividly bright eyes somehow managing to appear flat, with none of the spark that had once burned there. She had thought finally being able to shift — finally being able to grasp that part of herself that always seemed so out of reach — would miraculously be the piece that allowed everything else to fall into place, but nothing had worked that way.
Instead, it seemed to only throw into sharp relief how much bigger the picture truly was, and it was nowhere near being complete.
She sees him in the meadow, and for the first time in she cannot even recall how long, something flickers to life in her chest.
“Voro,” she says his name, but she can feel it turn to ash on her tongue. She is close enough now to see the desolation that reflected in his eyes, the way he seemed weighed by an overall tiredness. As if the dark of the eclipse had leaked into the pores of him, settling into his bones. Her heart twinges, just once, because isn’t she part of the reason he is here? Her memory is foggy, but she is sure she had promised something about how Beqanna would be everything he dreamed—that it would be different than where he had come from.
She had been so focused on her own issues that she had not thought to seek him out in the eclipse, to see how he was fairing.
The guilt that floods her veins extinguishes whatever flame had tried to ignite.
She stops a few paces from him, worry clouding her face before she smooths it away with a small smile. “Do you remember me?” And she can’t help but to think that maybe it would be easier if he did not.
A I S L Y N
@Voracious
