October 09, 2023, 05:59 PM
It was in her dreams that Reverie found herself again, as she always had; a wildly weakened and trembling thing, scorched to an open wound while the flames of old hurts passed her by as if she'd never been there at all. The fire was always in her — but it never truly blazed without a kindred soul for kindling.
And those who had come before had always left her to burn and burn out, as empty when they left as she'd been at the start. Rose and her shrieking death and Riordan with his cutting demands, and Lestan, Lestan who had torched all the love from her heart and all the air from her lungs and left her to wither and gasp and grasp desperately for something, anything to fill that hollow space. She'd sworn that she would not love again, in the safety and secrecy of her own heart. She'd looked to her daughter, a flame all on her own who shone so brightly with only the open air and the sky above to fuel her, and she'd promised to nurture that light alone.
But then another light found her; a silver star, a blinding trail blazed across the sky until that light fell into her hands and reminded her all at once what it felt like to burn. He'd taught her that it did not always need to hurt, this all-consuming love, this wildfire heart always spinning out of control. That it could be something warm, something safe, something like a well-kept hearth in a childhood home. And home was a concept Reverie had always rejected for herself, convinced that she would never find it, never want it. She knew now that she'd been wrong.
It was only that it had taken so long, so many false starts and flickered-out flames of what could have been.
But @Boone was her home, and maybe he had been all along.
It was him she dreamed of now, and so many stars falling from the night sky, reflecting back at her in those dark eyes that would haunt every dream for the rest of her life.
And those who had come before had always left her to burn and burn out, as empty when they left as she'd been at the start. Rose and her shrieking death and Riordan with his cutting demands, and Lestan, Lestan who had torched all the love from her heart and all the air from her lungs and left her to wither and gasp and grasp desperately for something, anything to fill that hollow space. She'd sworn that she would not love again, in the safety and secrecy of her own heart. She'd looked to her daughter, a flame all on her own who shone so brightly with only the open air and the sky above to fuel her, and she'd promised to nurture that light alone.
But then another light found her; a silver star, a blinding trail blazed across the sky until that light fell into her hands and reminded her all at once what it felt like to burn. He'd taught her that it did not always need to hurt, this all-consuming love, this wildfire heart always spinning out of control. That it could be something warm, something safe, something like a well-kept hearth in a childhood home. And home was a concept Reverie had always rejected for herself, convinced that she would never find it, never want it. She knew now that she'd been wrong.
It was only that it had taken so long, so many false starts and flickered-out flames of what could have been.
But @Boone was her home, and maybe he had been all along.
It was him she dreamed of now, and so many stars falling from the night sky, reflecting back at her in those dark eyes that would haunt every dream for the rest of her life.