meet you where the spirit meets the bones, a cool winter night grows over the oasis. winter has settled harshest in the eastern lands, where the wind nips at your heel with a promise of frost and ice. as the stars begin to find their place in the dark, elide watches them from the oasis shore, trying to find meaning in her being here. she hadn't quite been able to tell if aidoneus finding her on the shore that night had been a blessing or a curse; was it better to die alone or live in a sea of strangers?

those she'd met between that night and now had been nice enough--some made friendly conversation, others left her to her peace--but there had been no real friendships to be made, nothing concrete and lasting. she craved some kind of acknowledgment of her existence other than keeping her on the fringes. she tired of being a ghost. especially now that her one tether to the pride had all but disappeared--a whisper of jasmine and sea glass on the breeze.

the oasis waters hummed as they washed against the sand, nipping at her toes, grounding her as her emotions and thoughts ran wild.

she'd come into amaryllis hating the sound of the ocean in her ears and the smell of seawater, but it was different here. the sand was less coarse and water fresh instead of briney. it wasn't the meadow she'd loved as a child, but there was little she carried to bring with her into this new life from the old one. elide stares at the sky and the stars stare back. they have no answers for her; they rarely did.

a sigh.

"Fine," she mumbles, "maybe I'll try being more social."


open to any and all! <3

things had been chaotic. it was all his own fault, of course. he's had his ass handed to him more times than he cares to count ( three ) and it's bruised not only his body but his ego, too. but worry not - it's far too generous to be beaten down entirely. just a bit tender at the edges, perhaps. so rather than go out to cause more trouble, antares supposes he should hang around home for a day or two. maybe. he could keep his head down for that long and find a different way to entertain himself, he supposes. it might be harder than going out into amaryllis and seeing whose skin he could crawl under. and just when he thinks he's going to have to spend the evening alone, @Elide's familiar scent wafts to him and curiosity bids him to follow it. he finds her talking to herself, grumbling about something under her breath, and his lips twitch into a vague smirk. "i'll tell you a secret." he says as he approaches, moving to sit alongside her and tipping his own head up to peer skeptically at the twinkling stars above. "the first step to being social is to stop talking to yourself."

code // art // do not use without permission

meet you where the spirit meets the bones, she’d started picking out constellations as the night drew on. it was an old habit, a way to soothe herself with ancient stories trapped in the sky, a way to remind herself that maybe she wasn’t so alone. once, a new servant had told her a tale about soulmates and how, after a life of hardship to test their love, they were placed in the sky right beside one another for eternity. she liked that one the most, because it gave her hope. it fed her dreams that love could exist, that it could stay. It was the staying that she yearned for the most, if only because people moved in and out of her life like ghosts; distant, haunting, and never quite corporeal enough to be felt.

she’s so caught up between the stars and ghosts and old love stories, she doesn’t quite notice him until the brush of warmth of a body settling close by. caught of guard in a vulnerable moment, the jade eyes that snap toward him are cold, unwelcoming. she wasn’t ready to let the world peek inside to the romantic underneath the sad, lonely exterior. it takes a glance at the pied skin, at that almost familiar smirk, before she rolls her eyes to ease the tension.

"eavesdropping, long-legs?” She means it to be a joke, but it comes out with a little too much edge.

“I wasn’t talking to myself,” she rushes, trying to hide those pointy pieces of her feelings with recovered composure. ”the stars listen if you let them.”

It sound silly, honestly, but it was true. It was never a real conversation—elide was pretty sure that would qualify her as actually crazy—but it was nice to get the words out before they built and built and built into resentment. In the end, she was no less lonely, just a little less sad.




@Antares <3