[seasonal event] to find a soul somewhere

amalia chandrakant there is a color that shines through your skin Like the moon on the wind He tells stories; stories of bloodshed, stories of wounds, each scar another stroke on the canvas that has made up his life before. How can one man have endured so much bloodshed, have taken each blow yet still be able to laugh, to smile and delight with mischievous radiance? Does he miss that life, a sword in his palm, wounding and crushing and fighting and killing, extinguishing life without a thought? She cannot picture him a killer, but she knows it must be true. Perhaps this is why he shies away: because he is strong and she is weak, he has lived and she has stagnated, he has blood and blood and blood in his hands, and her is all inside her veins. She is weak, she is small, she is sheltered. She has seen so little, experienced naught. How is she to stand beside him, see herself as something close to equal, satisfy the needs beneath his skin? He is vast, and experienced, and wild. He frightens her, makes her frighten herself, the searing want that boils within her more terrifying than anything she has ever known. Looking at him is a blow to the gut, stealing her breath and leaving her dazed, stumbling, stammering, stupid. Does he know the things he does to her, or has he done them all before, to the rain and then to others, prettier, smarter, more experienced than she? Oh, she does not doubt it, no matter what he says. Someone so handsome, so daring, so good- how could he not have had suitors, lovers, consorts, queens? Besides these fictionalized women Amalia is nothing, a length of straw in a tower of gold, brassy and dull, meaningless and small. But as she traces the silver scars, she knows that it does not matter. The past is left far, far behind, literally a world away; they are here, they are together, and by some strange miracle he is hers. It is not worth much, he chuckles; "I suppose they don't really matter, now," comes her quiet reply, not a rejection but the opposite, in fact. It is a statement on the value of the past, and its absence in the present. The scars are not important to her: he is, the he who is here and now, the man before her and the soul within. There will be new scars, new wounds, new fires, new burns. There is room in his life for her, and she will take it, carve herself a niche, live within the comfort of him until he grows weary of her and she becomes another memory, a silver story etched into the past. It is a remarkable thing, to fall in love: slow at first, subtle, a stumble, a slip. The incline of friendship, but a little bit steeper, scarcely enough for the girl to notice until it is too late, until her feet have fallen from under her and she is tumbling, careening, head-over-heels faster than she can track, her stomach dropped down and her heart in her throat. When did it happen, that original fall? Just now, as she watched him arise from the deep? Was it the day in the village, or perhaps that first dance? Or earlier, even, in the flour-filled bakery, as she watched him plant flowers, when she woke in his arms? Has it always been destined, written in one of the books that she gave him, that day in the library so long ago? Does it matter, truly, in the end? What matters is this: now, in this moment, Amalia loves him. She knows this, though had anyone asked a day ago she might have only laughed, replied with a shrug that who was to say? And because she is Amalia, and because she is a fool, the knowledge is such that it cannot be kept secret. He deserves to know the truth of it, the depth of her feeling, the extent of her heart; he deserves it so that he might escape, might run from the quicksand that makes up her soul, can bow out with grace if he does not feel the same. She keeps her gaze averted, staring up at the sun, her left arm raised as a shield might be, casting shadow on her face. Amalia prides herself on honesty, on fairness- and to her it is not fair for him not to know, to be kept unaware of her deepening feelings, the things each moment means to her. The heartbeats stretch to seconds, the seconds to minutes, hours, days. Silence, deafening, roars inside her ears, the wake of her confession a frigid, burning thing. She does not turn to him as he rises, though she is acutely aware of his shifting frame, the way his blue eyes bore into her, the rhythm of his breath. She will not ask him to say it back, to make admit to things he does not feel. She is not seeking commitment or marriage, she is not trying to lock him away. "It's okay," she whispers into the sky, her dark voice a lilting, sing-song alto, carrying on the breeze. She almost laughs; she can feel it rising, mounting panic in her chest, the weight of his silence at last too much to bear. "You don't- I don't need you to say it back, I just... I wanted you to know, before-" But then he is there, a second away, a hair's breadth, a whisper, and she softens at last, turning to face him, compelled by a magnetism greater than her pride. There are tears in her eyes as she looks at him, searching, waiting, her breath still and her heart wild, a lump rising high in her throat- And then his hands are on her, and his mouth is on her neck, and Amalia laughs, giving in to his touches, melting like snow in the heat of his embrace. Her own fingers find purchase in his hair, weaving in among the locks, caressing and touching and soothing and exploring, drifting down along to the curve of his ears, the line of his jaw. She gasps beneath his ministrations, toes curling in the sand- And then he speaks, and she pulls away, a sudden hot fury bright in her gaze. "Don't say that," she growls, rising onto her knees, kneeling above him, her hands on his face. Her thumb slips over his lips to still them, to keep the lies and falsehoods within. "I get to decide who deserves my love, and I decided on you." Her voice is a warning, but her mouth is a smile, laughing and loving, tears in her eyes. Then she lets her mouth drop back down, eager and hungry and wild on his his, and her hands travel at last to his shoulders, his chest, fumbling and eager, youthful and bold, taking and taking and taking it all. Deimos, to her, is many things: mountain, glacier, lighthouse, bastion. He is her shield, her shelter, her inspiration, the thorn in her side and the balm for her wounds. He is blue seas and blue skies, infinite and expansive, waiting and wanting to swallow her whole, to surround her and fill her and never let go. Deimos is thunder in a summer storm, rumbling, fantastic, the drums of the gods vibrating through her bones; he is lightning, electric, each touch a shock coursing down her nerves, brilliantly bright and painfully hot. Amalia is young, and a fool, and in love, unafraid of thunder, happy to dance beneath the storm. She is a kite in his gale, a leaf on his breeze. She is his, and she is ready to give, to release herself without reservation into his calloused and gentle hands. the night is full on behalf or your evaded mask And the rings round your eyes

image || coding