Σελήνη ;

      “I’m not.” The requisite audacity to openly lie claimed the remainder of her courage, though that had meant nothing, pseudo as it already was. “I wish you’d stop! Leave me alone!” She rises with the exclamation, trembling nearly, gaze adopting the inconsistency, shallow water the moon-epitome wades, encroaching like death. Her fingers are clenched unto asphyxiation, whitening flesh, a living ghost in the night, clinging as though it were an alien corporeality. “I spent so long,” something swelling deep inside, “I spent so long …  and you …  abandoned me! You left me!” Her pivot is expedited by desperation, scouring earth for anything, a meager stick weaponized by her clutching palms. “Stay there, Diana! Don’t come any closer to me. I mean it.” Her lips sputter, proverbial bastion almost shattering, though she persists, grounding herself, exchanging weakness: a cycle of falsehoods. 

      “I’ll kill you. I mean it, Diana,” gritting teeth, “I –  I will.”

she understands the pain on a visceral level: this emotion washes her over in violent, tidal waves, lashing against her bare skin as she struggles remain balanced amidst the rage of the sea tearing her apart. she understands this pain on a personal level, having been left alone; curled into herself and left for the mercy of moonlight’s choice ------ sometime in a past life, so far away that the moon aspect does not know when, or where, just enough to have the hurt remain embed into her skin and scorching her as ghost-ache. “you will not kill me,” she starts, asserting her voice as a balance between the turmoil before her and the cold-stone that is what she knows she should present; a cold-hearted reality, that would benefit the girl before her more than any word of kindness anyone could ever offer her.

but at what cost? what silver eyes see breaks her, even if looking at diana would tell someone that she is unfazed, unaffected. it is not just her own pain, that she carries now, but also pain of seeing, and feeling, with the girl. how many times can a heart be torn? her step is solid against the ground, without a single shake; body enclosing to her and, despite the celestia of a god one prays to, diana rather offers a protective portent, in the enfold open; weaponless.