STARVED.

why are her words barbed-wire things, trapping around him? rabbit hearts beat too hard in hearts, buck-boys with their legs spindled out and broken behind them, caught in a trap they ran right into, perhaps knowing, perhaps hoping for a better outcome than this writhing in the snow.

he is wrong, of course. hands stop, stutter in the air just before her skin for a moment, angry burns suddenly warning signs of things he shouldn’t have ran headfirst into himself, thinking himself worth something capable of a saving.

(and are they not one in the same like this?)

“i - “ words are caught in throats, barbed wire scratching at pink flesh, tearing. “they wouldn’t - w-wouldn’t have died, i - “ hands drop to his sides, as do eyes. “i would have known it first. t-there was no - no need to.”

words are quieter than the wind, something asking to be unheard. he wills himself not to follow her fingertips or those words, to be a foolish thing running straight into traps, like a foolish girl running into fires.

“i - i - “ his voice is scratched, as if inhaling smoke himself. “i’ll forgive you.” and quieter still, to be unheard and still known: “you know i will.”

(foolish, foolish thing he is)

her laughter is something that lives under his skin and eyes are looking just past her shoulder when he replies. close, but not quite. the only kind of distance he knows, a hovering. “why did you, then? you could have - have… stayed.”

Heart-sick, perhaps. Is that why she cannot rein in her callous, unsympathetic tongue when he shivers with anxiety-ridden concern? Is it the blackness against her own heart ( no longer shivering, no longer bleeding for a cause ) which makes her shallow in any show of kindness towards him, any affection which is unusually withheld? But he was selfish, just as she was — she can see it in him then, and it’s no less unsightly. And yet, he flinches away from her. 

He was a timid, quivering thing, and she found part of herself ( stained glass girl, there are so many fragments ) hated him for that through some curious instinct for which she could not account, and which for that reason was all the more dominant in her. “So, we should let others suffer because we can?”

There’s a memory, felt. Fingernails traced red against skin — a possession, a comfort ( and violent intent doesn’t matter, not to her ). So, she wonders why he flinches away from chill-soaked bones, every claw-marked inch of flesh she has to offer. Flinches away, yet keeps hands locked on shirtsleeves. And really, she’s not sure what he’s holding on to. “Do I mean so much to you or do they simply mean so little,” and again, it’s an accusatory sort of sentiment — tailed by a small hum, rake of dark eyes over him in quiet consideration.

And it must feel divine, to force herself to moral high ground like this. She pays no mind to the way her heel has dug into his spine in the ascent, the way she wounds him when she climbs upward with claws outstretched. Then, maybe all that cruelty she had allowed people to love her with has finally cracked open some vein inside her heart — rotting from the inside out, turning something she doesn’t even recognize. 

“Thank you,” the sweetest words she has said to him, she murmurs with a squeeze of palms over nervous hands — another apology in itself, for the viciousness unrelenting. “I really don’t mean to hurt you, Theo. You know that, right?” Call it penance if you like, little pixie — but it’s only ever been guilt.

“I just — I wanted to be useful, for once. I wanted to be good. Is that so bad?”

DATE & TIME: February 14TH, 6:30PM LOCATION: Starlight Carnival TAG: @ohauras

All the people are out, but the flames haven’t died, but wounds have barely been healed - the world a thing of fire and blood, against snow, against bodies. And he is a calm among it, calm eyes and still hands, like he could live in this state of the world, live around blood, he won’t blink. But he is good here, but hands work quick, think him almost unaffected, unfazed, but a calm rolls off in waves, he knows what he’s doing. Even with limited nursing staff, even with limited supplies, less than they can manage, but enough when you consider that he isn’t the doctor for the Carnival’s cryptids shedding blood.

And if he trusts the volunteers in general is another discussion altogether, but one for later, for now, he simply doesn’t have a reason to trust them to help in ways that will matter, ways he knows won’t hurt, even if from good intentions. The outcome is what matters, he doesn’t care how they get there, so he doesn’t care who helps, as long as they don’t backfire.

So he stands before Aura now, pulls her out from the crowd of the medical car, deliberately before she can join the chaos completely, voice quiet, “I’ll ask you more or less once, if you have any experience and know why you want to be here,” the last because he thinks it matters, why she’s here, even if it takes up more time to ask, it questions how much thought she puts into what she’s doing.

Ruthless, that rapid defense at her tongue when she senses some turn of accusation, this thinly veiled doubt — turns it silver, turns it sharp. How else to react to his prodding sentiment, if she’s to shelter that flimsy, wavering sense of heroism in her heart? Then, she’s never been quite sure how to protect herself except with a flash of teeth, all knees pulled up against chests and hands thrown out in defense. “A little audacious, don’t you think? To even ask,” she doesn’t stifle the disbelieving scoff slipped from her lips, razor-edged with vague disdain.

“Do you have hands to spare if I don’t? Do we even have the time?”

But she regrets those words as soon as she’s asked him, visibly grimacing. Of course, Aura has never bluffed well enough to play these games — coy half-crescent smiles, dark eyes narrowed. Why else hide beneath a veil? But that would not work here, not even backed into a corner ( and she wonders what the use of it is, when incapacitated from that clever little disappearing act ). 

“It doesn’t even matter. I don’t need to explain myself to you,” and she doesn’t spare the words on him kindly, but rather with some impersonal frost — ice, titanium ( anything formidable that she can draw up from that reserve of ugliness, of bitterness hidden between lungs, where hearts lay ). Ultimately, how to say to him that she’s unsure? It seems unwise, against what she has perceived to be a condemnatory doubt.

Lenore watches Aura for a long time, exhaustion weighing heavily underneath eyelids. But it’s the kind of tiredness that hurts—if she shuts her eyes, she’s forced to open them again because of the aching. (And to be truthful, she’s afraid of sleeping, afraid of what she might see.) 

The only reply she is able to offer is vague, “Maybe someday,” Voice hoarse from sleeplessness, from all the shouting. What else can she say to her without it being an outright lie? Once, she would’ve lied to her friend, would have told her yes, you will go home, I promise. But that isn’t who she is anymore. She doesn’t know who she’s becoming. 

(‘Maybe someday’, something her father said to her once. When she asked if they’d ever leave.)

She drifts closer to her friend, hand moving to grasp Aura’s elbow, a small offered anchor. “The city is beautiful, isn’t it?” How Volkov managed to guide them all here through the blizzard, she’ll never know. But even the city’s lights cast their own shadows. 

The courtyard they’re standing in is practically deserted.

“Feels like the Carnival was nothing but a bad dream.” The city’s clean lines, compared with the decay of the Carnival, almost make that place feel like something out of a separate realm, living in its own pocket universe. 

Dark eyes flicker back to Aura, inspecting her face when she asks, tentatively, “Where was home for you?” 

Maybe someday. 

Sufficient, at best. Though, she finds the offering predominantly inadequate to the exhaustion she felt against optimism, limp-limb defeat which had crept its way into her. Slow-moving death. “Maybe someday,” she hums back into the abrupt silence, drowsily. But this was a different sort of weariness entirely. 

Here, she had thought that she possessed such an exquisite light about her, some inborn potential for it at the very least — that flowers would have spoken fondly of her, that she were immune to this aching felt so wholly, with every fiber. After tonight, any notion of that elevated sense of self makes her feel like a child. Stupid, gullible, ignorant.

“It’s too big,” she answers finally, hesitantly, after a pause.

Oh, because she would prefer the corners of her own home to the city now — forget the beauty of it, forget the anchoring touch against arms. What use was the grandeur to her now, except in distraction? And for a second, she finds herself thinking the very opposite to her friend. The city is so ugly after all, isn’t it? The indistinct allure, only a masquerade — she’s sure of it in that passing moment, when the ugliness reserved within her chest ebbs out.

“Funny.” 

What she means is how it’s escaped her, the minute that somebody asks. Home, she tries to conjure up an image, a place. All she finds are minutiae: imposing visages hung along hallways, velvet curtains with their shimmering gold lining. “I can’t really remember,” and it’s not been long at all, to forget as she has. But then, home has never truly been a home to her anyway, has it?

DATE&TIME: february 15th, 1:00am LOCATION: starlight carnival remains STATUS: closed for @ohauras

he had tried his best, truly. pulled at her sleeves, wide eyes pleading, begging - told her that he didn’t want to have to see through her eyes tonight, didn’t want to know what wings burnt off would feel like. stay, not for you, then for me. give me a reason not to hurt tonight.

(but here, you see, he is not enough of a reason. there is always, always another that will hold more of the girl than he ever could, even as he grasps onto sleeves. ghosts of things hold more substance to her than he did)

“you shouldn’t have run in.” words are soft but eyes are still frenzied things, quick hands trying to press wet cloths to burns on fair skin. “you shouldn’t - i told you, i said, i didn’t want to - i was scared, i thought i was going to see your body in there, in the fire and then i’d have to trade someone for - “

(for you, but did it matter? who is he willing to give up for a girl who chooses a burning building over him?)

“did you find what you were looking for in there?” hands knot together when done with salves on skin, blisters on hers now matching his hands. it feels wrong, and theo pries his eyes away from her wounds to meet her eyes, flittering back and forth between them. “was it worth it?”

A wild, untamed manner of pride and disgust ran over her — a conglomeration of the two, inevitable to this self-martyrdom. The very same madness of ego which had earned vitriol, had urged her to the fire despite pleading ( all fingers hooked in shirtsleeves, shaky palms wrapped round wrists ). 

An almost regret passes through her for it, two-faced coin spinning on the precipice of repentance. Yet, morbid sentiment earns a flash of twisted pain, some curl of contempt thereafter in the curved line of her mouth. Any self-loathing has suddenly receded, been brought to heel by this surge of convoluted idealism.

You shouldn’t have run in.

“I suppose I should have let them burn then,” and it’s more of an accusation than a question — barbed, damning. For a moment, there had almost been some consideration of viciousness. Almost, and yet none at all. Is that why she attempts to salve over the wound, as boy had done for her ( those burnt-edge wings, the flame-kissed hands )? 

“I’m alright, aren’t I?” Charred fingertips roll beneath knotted hands, reluctant. And it makes one wonder, if she were sensitive to him or the fire still felt on skin? Though, she had always meticulously toed the black-white line between thoughtlessness and altruism. “ — — but I am sorry that I worried you, really. I hope you’ll forgive me for being selfish.”

Small sound of laughter then, as though amused; yet the bitter, unkind lilt of it bleeds through any sweetness ( crimson, and it’s almost striking ). “Well, I’m not sure.”

trigger warnings: mention of abuse

Look here, at the optimism crushed mercilessly beneath her jaw — clenched tight, just as palms blackened. Shivering moonlight casts her ragged shadow to the snow-lined field, pins it as butterfly to board: held down, but still struggling. Oh, and if she could wrench the quiver from between her bones, she might have — though, her sinews were only ever haunted as the smoke-stained ruins around them ( nothing tangible to held in hands, simply felt with crippling intensity ). 

How many had she pulled from the flames, wreathed round them? Not many at all, aside from herself — cautious moth, begging to be burned but skirting ignition, left almost entirely empty-handed in anything but another memento, another scar to remember it all by ( a little fondly, despite herself — beneath all the regret risen to the surface, by a heart which has begun to fear itself ). 

“Do you think I’ll ever go home?”

A little wistful, melancholy — a rhetorical weighed heavily against her tongue, with that taste of death which she cannot swallow down entirely. Any wave of heroism suddenly paled next to the homesickness, could not dim the desire flooded through her at once for anything but sunlit daydreams, rose-colored glasses and sugar-spun bones ( useless to her, to be left unrealized in this soot-stained reality of theirs ). Once, she had not needed to want for such transient joys — had believed that these wings could be smothered, that humanity could have been beaten from her bones. 

As if it could have been adoration that earned the heavy hands of her father, some reserved fondness beneath the necessary aversion to her shrunken limbs — unnatural, inhuman. Certainly, her mother too had to withhold some quiet endearment, beneath all that fear, the piercing eyes caught on her own in the mirror when they stood side by side. At times, even hatred is necessary to love, no?

“I think I’d like to go home, maybe.”

she has always been too fond of the girl, perhaps. it is something about the hollows of those eyes, that soft downturn of her lips, how throats ache to be bared. broken. beautiful. she thinks her little pixie a darling, all hollowed out for her already. has nothing but dust and space for her to sink pale hands in.

and oh, what a lovely stained-glass-edged thing she is, by her doorway more shadow than girl. more echo than voice. it is charming, truly, how the girl is an almost-transparent sliver before her, almost begging. her smile is nothing but fond, the closest to being loving as it could be.

“of course, my dear love. you can stay for all the time in the world, dear.” she opens the door for her, places hands on arms to guide her in. her touch is soft, comforting when it grazes cheeks, threads through hair as she lies the girl down on her bed; porcelain doll, princess under a glass cage, sleeping.

“where does it hurt, my love?” red fingertips trace throats lightly, leave pink line pathways down to the girl’s forearms, pressing in. a claim of what belongs to her - this skin, this trace of a girl left on her bed. “let me make it better - it has been a long night, but i am here now. you are safe to rest here, my dear.”

(red nails graze over pink lips. it is a love, a comfort, a possession. to poison-filled things, to smoke-wisp girls, they are all the same)

—trigger warnings: mention of death, blood, + violence

How viciously accurate she is in the assumption of emptiness, all echoes refracted off of moonlit bones — half-filled lungs, arrhythmic heart. Winged girl had been born like this, and starves on wholeness ( would let possessive hands dominate her if they could fill her chest, would sacrifice her white-lily throat to hungry teeth to be wrapped up within arms ). Used to think she could satiate herself entirely on hope, but there’s no substance to illusions — maybe she’s tired of it, feels it lessen. Maybe it's time to trade in optimism for this bloody possession, she thinks. 

“You shouldn’t,” and she means the palms smoothed down her skin, nails dug into crimson-stained flesh — cannot relish in this feeling of being marked, when girl has become so devastatingly blood-soaked. All of it, these flashbacks of silver knives against throats, cut within blinking eyes, and yet all she’s afraid of right now is the transfer of arterial onto white cotton sheets. Really, she’s been turned numb — hasn’t had to process Death beyond the imagination, beyond the daydreams, and she isn’t sure how. 

“Everywhere,” she chokes the word out, twists it from lips with a cracked sound — each limb begins to shake, and she cannot still these trembling bones beneath skin. Throat closes, heart skips. “It hurts everywhere, Sol.” 

She had caught herself in mirrors before, had flinched away from the silvered look in dark eyes — half-dead, half-alive. But that had not compared to those cast on her, altogether emptied ( and she still feels them on her, all over her — scratches feverishly at her skin, rips away at the lingering gaze of a dead man on her ). “It’s not mine... It’s not mine, but it hurts everywhere.”

(Aura should know, could have been able to guess, she doesn’t mind scarred hands. Has some herself, from childhood left unsupervised, left mainly uncared for. Has moments she feels hands like needles, like touch the one thing that could take her from this world, flinching away from it. But she still loves too much, but she still looks too much at the world with it. But she looks at Aura knowing well, like something so close to the heart, that what’s important, is never seen. So why should she care for scars? See instead girl who latches onto love like she hasn’t seen it before, so give all there is in little ways, where it’s worth it. Girls that have never lived anywhere but their own mind have a way of noticing too much of the world and it’s people, grow up caring too much for invisible things, Aura may already know.)

“I’m not going to ask you to lean down for me, so if I have to stand on a chair, don’t laugh unless I am too,” a tilt of the head, smile in the eyes, “Really, I should be too.” Emme knows too of voices, beyond what makes her inhuman. She means mothers, she means men with smiles that are too much teeth, held in the back of her mind, too sharp laughter with reminders of who she is, what the world is like, what it will do to her. Smile to keep walking forward. Focus on dreams for all your nightmares, hold them on the lips. Look into exhausted eyes, and know how many expressions a face can hold, can hide.

Unlike the other, childhood, she can have a difficult time remembering without black walls covering memories, blocked out. But now, there’s only laughter, and she knows she will remember it. Knows she’ll remember gently poking at Aura’s red cheeks, smiles with it, “You look like a rose,” as if to tell the girl to not be embarrassed, Emme’s own cheeks something pink in empathy, in receiving the words.

“Haven’t I told you before, I have nothing to do with apologizes, especially not for that. And thank you - if someone asks me where I learn to twirl while dancing, I’ll point them to you,” stops dancing to say it, lowers on her toes while still looking up to the other. “And remember how I said not to laugh at me, I mean it this time,” as she steps onto the chair behind her, almost fumbling because she tries to keep their stance the same. 

So, that’s just it. They stand here, two girls with enough crimson-tinged ghosts to spare between each other, making pretend — as though they are made of nothing but starlight, nothing but blooming to be found beneath scarred skin. For a flashing moment, she thinks to tell the other girl that her illusions are no far step from reality, knows that if she pressed lips to skin that they would come away honey-heavy, some golden light wrapped around her tongue.

It is the discrepancy between them, not to be ignored. Emme had been dealt a heavy hand, not unlike Aurora, but for it she had come away all the more exquisite, lovely — sun’s brilliance cast all in a single spot, dew-kissed gardenias preening beneath a blushing dawn. Ah, and perhaps she has always made a habit of hopeless romance, this bone-chilled pixie, but she had also survived on that self-constructed optimism of hers so long that she thinks she knows a saint when she sees one ( and the tell-tale signs are this: halos made by glittering chandeliers overhead, the lightness of hearts in chests, that fear and adoration flooding through her mouth ). 

“I wouldn’t dare,” she tries to make a promise of it, but her lips have already upturned at the corners — she cannot help it, feels too much warmth in these cold hands of hers. And who would this oracle girl not have such a profound effect on anyhow? Especially with such unreserved observation of the way her cheeks have spoilt themselves on roses, these shades of red which amalgamate below a suddenly avoidant gaze. “Oh, um — thank you, I think,” and she’s fumbling a bit at the comment, but then the habitual shame melts into pride.

Her eyes draw upward again, and you could swear by the stars glittering darkly between them — adoringly, ever more. It’s almost charming, really. The way that she falls in deeper with every word exchanged, every heart on its sleeve offered up to her infinite saltwater tears, relentlessly flushed cheeks. “Well, I’ll be proud to take responsibility then,” she says to this resolution, careful hands hovering around waists and wrists as the other girl eases up onto her chair. Even shake a little at the fumbling, made nervous by the thought of slipping up, falling down. She refuses to let knees be bruised, if she can help it.

“Well, I think it’s time we gave this a go, huh?"

It feels like mercy, how she still reaches out to him after how he’s hurt her last time they spoke. Of course, it’s not the first time he has hurt her with his words like that. It’s something he’s avoided thinking about for the past few months - she is someone he’s avoided thinking about altogether for reasons he understands but won’t acknowledge. How soft she would look with her eyes closed, hair like silk resting against his pillow; the way lights dance against the sharper angles of her face (he doesn’t remember the movie playing in the background but he remembers the way she’d laugh at it).

You said you weren’t using anyone, Link.

Remembers how he’d hurt her, pushed her to the side and told her just as well - I can’t do this. He meant something, but you, you’re not -

He knows it’s not really mercy or forgiveness, the way she sits beside him, arm to arm. He wants to lean on her and let his tired body rest for a goddamned moment but he knows he can’t - shouldn’t. So he keeps himself still, fights the way his eyes try to slide to a close and his hands folded neatly on his lap, ignores the way his wrist throbs.

I hope that you’re okay.

Me too - god, me too -

“I’ve been better,” he finally manages, lifts his head up a little so he can look at her properly. “You’ve got -” It’s almost-impulse, the way he gently presses a finger to a cut on her face and how his face twists in worry, but he knows better than to linger so he pulls back just as quickly, hand back on his lap.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have - I’m sorry.”

There’s a possibility that the apology is for something else entirely, poison laced with guilt and uncertainty, regret and hope, though he knows he doesn’t deserve that sort of kindness from her. “We should - we should go take care of that.”

It’s almost comical, this stroke of fate against her. Rabid heart of her own had ravaged the opened arms, white cotton sheets left hollow to her, a rib cage cracked wide to accommodate her bones. Starved on such adoration, and she had made herself savage for it — careless, selfish. Now, it is her own emptied bones being infiltrated, laid ruin to by wretched hands.

Does he even realize how much unfulfilled hurt lay in her veins for him, waiting to be taken up? Though, she has never known how to forsake a heart after her own — no matter how cold, no matter how self-serving. As if to be desired at all were worth being so half-loved, with only afterthought and the secondhand touches that he pityingly recycles on her bruised skin, the cuts made in flesh.

He meant something, but you, you’re not  —

What a disillusioned, lovesick thing to beg on him for furthered cruelty, no? After all, the way that he looks to her as though she were some half-dead thing, haunting him so mercilessly — it settles unkindly on her heart, tortures her in that misplaced hope she holds onto. Perhaps she was born just this greedy, but she wants to be more than a memory, this wave of guilt washed over him. Is it because of the relief he grants in just one touch? 

Her dark eyes flutter closed at the minute fingers against skin, soft sigh unlatches from her teeth and heart soars within its cage. But then it is gone, just as quick as it came — the knives rush back in, and he sends his own flooding on her heart. “Please,” and she pauses to swallow thickly on the stones caught in her throat as eyes open again, trying to weigh down on the words she forces to lips, “ — just stop apologizing to me already.”

She hates the way it feels like a goodbye, this feeling of being laid to rest. Would rather that he be selfish with her, that he take unsparingly from her hollowed bones. Half-dead thing wonders if she resents the way he looks so sorrowfully at her only after devastating every inch of her exposed bird bones — thinks that she does, the way her stomach flips. 

“Can’t we stay here for just a minute longer instead? I just — I want to stay here,” she admits without looking at him, pulling knees to chests and wrapping arms around herself — as if that would tame the desire stirring, as if that would trap within her the stupid willingness to forgive every time, every wrong. Almost, she reaches for his hands ( to kiss over his knuckles, press his palms to her cheeks ) — wants to hold them in her own like she used to, when she didn’t have to hesitate as she does now. But she doesn’t, for the same reason that he pulls away from her.

get to know the people in my muse’s life

💀 …someone my muse would kill for: answered!!

👿 …someone my muse used to like, but doesn’t anymore: hmmmm this is honestly a tough one?? i’d say the only person i can really think of is link?? tho i wouldn’t say she doesn’t like him anymore, but there’s definitely part of her that wants to hold him at a distance or mistrusts him?? a lowkey fckboy let’s be Real :/

get to know the people in my muse’s life

👀 …someone my muse likes, but doesn’t trust: yall she loves wayyyy too many chaotic snakes for this question…. omari, sol her mom, mal?? idk she’s just iffy on him?? soren sorta…..that’s a whole Mess…. tho none of that will stop her from hangin with ur local cannibal or literally placing her life in his hands ( yall if that doesn’t make her an Absolute idiot idk what does )

💔 …someone who broke my muse’s heart: hahahaha can i just disassociate myself altogether pls??/ tbh it’s too easy to break aura’s heart?? but esp addy ( yall don’t even kNOW ) + link?? i’d say omari too on a pretty regular basis bc what a bULLY ( which just shows u how much soj takes pleasure in torturin me and my pixie )

get to know the people in my muse’s life

🌟 …someone my muse trusts: idk it’s kinda like varying degrees of trust?? i’d say that she trusts everyone in….. some capacity… but would probably only trust emme, lenny, noah, and xue with like her life??? .....and soren..... i can't explain that one :/

💕 …someone my muse loves: seriously…. everyone….. but especially noah, emme, lenny, xue, omari, sol, addy + link!!! they are the most precious to her and she will Fight anyone who touches them tbh and she is not a fighter

send me ❤ and I will bold all that applies to your muse

send me ❤ and I will bold all that applies to your muse

li hua

I would kill for you. • I would protect you. • I would hurt you for a selfish cause. • I wish we had more in common. • I want nothing to do with you. • I want to see you cry. • I want a future with you. • I want to destroy your future. • I do not care what you do. • I am indifferent towards you. • I love you ( platonically ) • I love you ( romantically ) • I love you like family. • You are my family. • I could fall in love with you. • I would lie for you. • I would fight by your side. • I will never let you go. • I would hold you while you cried. • I would hug you. • I would kiss you. • I would stay by your bedside if you were ill. • I want to fall asleep with you in my arms. • I want to forget you. • I will never forget you. • I want to make you proud. • I wish I could make you happy. • You deserve nothing. • I will never forgive you. • You confuse me.

nadia