ah, and isn't he always just so put together? the one with all the power. the one with all those trinkets, tempting strangers, tempting lovers, tempting backstabbers of all kinds. the mist coils around her, rewriting synapses, soothing emotions, and her thoughts drift, settle on another train of thought. 

i hurt him. and he is scared. 

when she bares her teeth, they're rounded, white and pretty. she licks her lips, laps at a spot of blood still at the corner of her mouth, and then sinks back into the water, back into the heat. as though she can draw it unto herself and fill this hole he's put inside her. 

"it's still new," she says softly, chin just above the surface of the water. "i truly am sorry. i'll be better. i just don't know...all the bits and pieces yet."

FERNANDO SILPH

HEAT POINTS: winner!

☉

she looks at the rivulets. do not forget yourself. but she does not know her self. that self has been shattered to pieces. alexander promised to put her back together and so she'd carted the bag of glass back to the mainland, only to find him gone, dead where she should have been in his place. so she gave her bag to the next best thing. 

and now she has no cracks. but the heat he'd used to put her together has warped her, has made her shimmer with a different color. once upon a time she was sand, and then she was glass, but what is she now? 

she is his. 

that is the stark truth. 

"i will," she says and turns her nose at his splashing. her gaze settles on his arm again, almost hungrily. "i just want to keep you safe."

FERNANDO SILPH

☉