convenio •• glasia/elena
May 18, 2014 7:51:17 GMT -5
Post by Onyx on May 18, 2014 7:51:17 GMT -5
elena ebowe
eighteen
district eight.
The first part of a sunrise is the stillness. In those early graveyard hours, especially on a clear night, you could almost cut the air with a knife. The view is rich with colour and everything seems to be in focus, because there's nothing to distract your senses from it. (She looks at me, and I look at her, and the stillness is so pronounced that I can see every hair on her head.) You know what's coming next - the wink of the sun on the horizon, the flush of gold over the landscape - the gates to that future are open and distinct, but you don't want to go through them yet. You wish to dwell in that twilight a little longer. (I know I should call out and make her leave, but I can't take that step yet. The dust settles around us in this daybreak stillness, and it's more than enchanting - it's beautiful.)
The birds wake as soon as the light descends on them, but when they begin to sing they don't fill up the air - they season it. The day awakens gently. (My fingers twitch, and oh-so-slowly I reach down and take the paintbrush from the floor). Still, nothing else stirs (and I keep staring straight at the stanger) and no one except the dawn's original audience is awake (and she keeps staring at me). Like a sigh, the breeze picks up, filling the pockets of the world which before held onlly silence. Under the first warm rays, the earth stretches, bringing its limbs carefully to life. (I unfold and extend my arm, paintbrush pointed at the stranger.) The people are still silent. (I say nothing.)
Don't think this is all happening in slow motion. The blossoming of the morning is the fastest part of a sunrise, and it's only a few heartbeats of stillness, and a few more of birdsong, before the final part begins. Lashes part, eyes focus, muscles begin to twitch. Morning sunlight oozes through curtains like apricot syrup. The burble of life crescendoes. And I open my mouth and begin to speak.
"Don't come another step," I murmur, my mouth so dry that the words emerge rough. The floorboards creak, and I glance hastily at my easel, balanced precariously on its mismatched legs, to check it's not rocking. I jab halfheartedly with the paintbrush, holding myself like Rene did with his knives during our first encounter, but being totally aware that I'm just a caricature of that level of threat. My hair hangs wildly around my face - not slicked back and stringy like his was - and instead of the blood and sweat of hard fighting around his neck and ears, my perspiration is from fear, and fear alone. What have I to be afraid of from this creature?
Waving the paintbrush ridiculously, I stutter "I- I'm warning you... I'm dangerous! I could really hurt y-" but I'm forced to stop by the flickering symbols which dart behind my eyes like bats, obscuring what I can really see. The lie is half out my mouth, a swamp bubble filled with empty threat, and already my brain is so active trying to push it out further that all my senses are alive. There's no pain, only a white-hot burning, running from behind my ears, down my neck, through my fingertips. I drop the paintbrush and double over, pressing my hands to my temples and willing myself to calm down, get a fucking grip. Such a tiny untruth, and yet, so large that it required enough thought to be my undoing. What must she think of me now?