writing_shadows

For

elizathemekhet :)

So, this was Snowflake.

I’d like to think she had truly changed Eli’s heart. That she’d caught him up and bound him and taught him that other people matter too. But then, I don’t know if any of us are expecting it to last. He’s married. He’s North, now. But we know Eli. We know how he thrives off of the hurt, the hunt, the game-playing, the cruelty, the… experimentation. Can he really be such a mystery to her, that she has not yet seen him be all these things?

Poor girl.

Poor girl who looked at me with venom, as Tor once did. Who stood there, black swirls of shadow in her eyes as she stared me down, challenged me about the scar, baited me to see if I would bite. But, I know how this conversation goes. I’ve had it twice before. Coldness comes naturally to me.

I told her that he asked for it, and that he chose to keep it. I wondered momentarily if he had been more open with her about this reality, than he had been with Tor. By the manner of her asking, I suspect he had not. Did she know how he liked to be cut, to hurt and be hurt, to play with his collection of glass knives, or had she only seen the gentleness that I saw in that glade; the sadness and softness and shyness. And all a lie.

She held herself upright, chin up, proud, cold. Such decorum. I know that stance. I’ve used it several times. It’s the one that says “Fuck with me and I’ll gut you like a fish.” I tilted my head and wondered if underneath it all there was any fire, any true darkness. After all… she is a Shadowsoul. And I have not yet met one who wasn’t a little bit enamoured with pain.

Perhaps they are a perfect match after all. I simply wonder which of them will break first.