#creighton is so beautiful in anri’s eyes that it was hard to keep her from going on and on

[austerulous]

◈   @talkawayknight​​ said:  ❛ 👀 anri??? :] ❜  //  send me a 👀

A name cuts through the perpetual roar of vacuity, dredging Anri from the bleak waters of distraction.

“Creighton… Creighton is here?”  How her dreamy countenance brightened at the possibility, focus sharpening features that often remained star-flung and faraway.  “No.  No, of course not.  He wouldn’t approve, would he?  No, no…”

Her noble husband was a prowling creature, shrouded in the dark of his own creation.  Anri could not conjure the image of him to her mind, could scarcely discern his outline even when he stood within arm’s reach – or loomed frigid and formidable over her.  Less a person, and more of a feeling.  A missed step in the dark, a shadow hovering in the corner of her gaze.  Haunting, hallowed.  

At the thought of his horror, the Lady of Hollows tugged fretfully at her thinning fringe.  Like any creature of the deep water, she is half-numb, half-blind.  One eye hung like a moon in its socket, clouded over, filmy and unseeing.  It had been pierced by the sword that bound them, in a marital ritual unlike any other.  No rings exchanged, no solemn-spoken vows, only the tip of a blade teasing through the slit in her visor.  If only she had known what would come of her surrender, if only she had been stronger.  If only she had listened to Creighton, and found her worth outside of another’s skin.  Perhaps then she would not live as a husk, in the painful twilight of dying dreams.

“You would know him if you laid eyes upon him.  Creighton, I mean.  A most beloved friend and stalwart companion.  Dear Creighton…”

Memories of his coarse voice, full of character and emotion, shaped by the cleft, brought a tremulous smile to Anri’s bruised lips.  There was a warmth to her friend, one that seemed to soak through his very gauntlets to stain her hands.  Slender fingers, rot-kissed and blackening at the tips, twitched as they recalled his amicable touch, his fumbling fondness.

“His hair is white as a heron’s throat, a cascade of snowy waves.  In my hands, it felt akin to the locks of another I loved… the same weight, the same texture…”

Horace.  His name was balanced like a knife’s dull edge on her tongue, his image was now beyond her sight, steadily eroding with time and decay.  The process of Hollowing slowly carved her out, reducing her to a vessel.  It robbed Anri of the beauty of the men’s contrast, all swan wings and raven feathers.

“His flesh is a living tapestry, home to a most peculiar mottling.  I never understood the origin of those sublime smudges, and was much too timid to ask.  I would have been loath to offend him with my curiosity.”  

In her regret, agitation.  Tension twisted and knotted in her gentle voice until it trembled.  

“His eyes are meltwater.  Blue can be a frightfully cold colour, but his shade is not so.  Not even his faithful mask can disguise their warmth, his tenderness…”  His love came without stipulation, without demand – platonic and gentle, but nonetheless fervent.  Anri shivered and sighed, fussing again with her fringe, her braids fraying, falling dull and lank to her shoulders.  “You mustn’t make mention to the Lord of the Dark.  It would kindle fury in his breast – ignite his ire – and you know the anvil against which he pummels his woes.”

Then it came, a moment of terrible lucidity.  Anri blinked, her sightful eye shifting into full focus, drifting over the four walls that enclosed her, shadow-drenched and touched with mildew.  A cage, barren save for her, for the sparse and lonely trappings of ladyhood.

“Creighton…?”

Silence, of course, was her only answer.