Amalia
There are pieces forming in her mind, a jigsaw puzzle taking shape despite her abject desire to keep the full image at bay. She does not know, does not want to know what she did: the grief in her soul is enough to manage, without context to lend its weight to her guilt. A fox. Fire. Horses. Darkness. Red. The red still lingers at the corner of her eye; Amalia turns her head, blinking as the antler comes into view. Has it always been on her bed? It glows with a steady, comforting light, and on instinct she reaches to pick it up, clutching between bone-white knuckles as it settles in her lap. She feels safer with it, somehow. A little stronger. A little less afraid.
A little.
She hears the movement of the man behind her and stiffens for a moment, terribly lost and unsure. He holds the key to understanding, she knows: he can unlock the thing she has hidden away, the reason she is here, her sins. He will be her undoing, and yet she yearns for him, for anyone, for the comfort of a touch on her narrow shoulder, a hand on a body which no longer feels quite hers.
Amalia does not raise her eyes from the antler, does not dare look at the man, afraid for what she will find in his face. It is cold in the infirmary, colder than it ought to be: the skin on her arms has raised to pinpoints, and she shivers once again. She can feel him now, the warmth that seems to radiate off his skin. They had come so close to something special, something magic, and she had ruined it by running off to chase the grand unknown. A week of peace and friendship, in the dark but not alone-
Why could she not have been content, accepted what she had without always wanting more?
"I am sorry, Rory," the girl whispers to the antler in her hand.
A little.
She hears the movement of the man behind her and stiffens for a moment, terribly lost and unsure. He holds the key to understanding, she knows: he can unlock the thing she has hidden away, the reason she is here, her sins. He will be her undoing, and yet she yearns for him, for anyone, for the comfort of a touch on her narrow shoulder, a hand on a body which no longer feels quite hers.
Amalia does not raise her eyes from the antler, does not dare look at the man, afraid for what she will find in his face. It is cold in the infirmary, colder than it ought to be: the skin on her arms has raised to pinpoints, and she shivers once again. She can feel him now, the warmth that seems to radiate off his skin. They had come so close to something special, something magic, and she had ruined it by running off to chase the grand unknown. A week of peace and friendship, in the dark but not alone-
Why could she not have been content, accepted what she had without always wanting more?
"I am sorry, Rory," the girl whispers to the antler in her hand.
