#ooc: // if they don't make a rika route i will SCREAM

[ridingtorohan]

AU: Another Story route (vaguely referenced). Cross-links: ao3 A/n: Written in 2017. Never edited.

It's hard not to fall in love with Rika. During a late-night garden stroll, it's even harder not to be captivated by everything that she is. Sometimes the darkness haunts you - and other times you willingly step in.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ SHADOWS IN THE GARDEN

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The garden feels eternally dark with a low and threatening feel to it. It had nothing to do with your company, or the potential of tripping. The lights, bright and blinding, hanging across the vine fencing is enough to see by. The glow is gentle and soothing and graces upon the smooth petals with an air of sincerity, of love and tenderness. Rika’s hair is lit up with a gentle glow, a slow sort of haze that makes you think of her as an angel.

The shadows are long on her face, cruel and unkind and don’t do her justice. It toughens her features, makes her look more monster than man.

Then she might tip her face into the light and any unease you feel melts away. There is something tranquil to the way she upcurves her lips, something soft and inviting. The way she speaks is soft and considering, her gaze never once flitting from you when you speak, her hand soft atop yours. You feel like you are her world, her attention solely focusing on you. It feels both overwhelming and affectionate - it is enough for you to slip up, to give in and surrender your secrets and sins.

The light dances across her skin in the garden, fresh blades of green brush against her wrists as she pulls up something that looks like a rose. Dimly, you are aware that Ray thinks that that is your favourite. Perhaps it is now, with the way she curls her fingers around it. Her eyes remain on you. You never understand why poets give life to blue eyes - hers are the fruits of the earth, the bend of the trees and the lap of the wind. There’s a tenderness, a softness to the angles of her face, something that makes her look homely.

It is not the soft petal of her lips, the swell of her cheeks, the budding of innocence in her face. It is the way she looks at you, admiring and in awe. Thirsty, as if she wants nothing more than to drink you up. You understand then why people seemingly fall prey to vampires in stories - there is an ethereal charm to her, something timeless and beautiful. There is so much devotion to her gaze that you want to fall to your needs and kiss her knuckles and pray to never leave her side. Women like her are the reason men go to war.

It is not just her appearance that pulls you in - the way her hands shifted and brushed against your skin as she helped you adjust your outfit. The precise way she handled your drinks, coffee or hot chocolate or walk milk or tea - anything and everything she held in such high regard. She does not scold herself when she gets it wrong but her jaw tightens and she will try again until she gets it right. The relief and clumsy happiness that spreads across her face is enough for your chest to warm with affection. The casual way words roll off her tongue, hot and sickly against your skin, a fever that you press into again and again and if she is the devil you will fall to temptation. She is smart and blinding in her presence - so much time and devotion and love. She never turns you away, always asks about your day even though she is with you, curious and envious of your life until assurances fall from your lips like a prayer. You will never leave her, you swear. Perhaps it might be smothering by anyone else. Perhaps this is what it is like to drown alive.

“These things must be done in precise order for the desired outcome,” she sighs your name and it is heaven sent. Rika’s lips press against the rose, tender and fleeting. A soft jealousy blushes at the edges of your gut. Her eyes catch yours and you see the darkness within. The light you barely glimpse behind her is so easily sniffed out.

You have always been afraid of the dark but with her you want to smother yourself with it. There are edges to the shadows, uncertainties to the jaggedness, something hard and foul every time you peer in. There’s an intelligence to it - something curious and strong and never fleeting, just receding. It always comes back.

Secrets are buried where nobody can see them and truths become shaded. It makes heroes out of fools and fools out of cowards. You are not afraid of the dark - just what lurks within.

With every darkness, there is light - not her, you realize moments too late, but perhaps you. She trails after you, lingering but never touching - not.. completely. The ache you feel for Rika is what the new moon feels for the light of the sun - incomplete and hollow. You were once warned of her persuasion skills, the curl of her tongue - she is the whisper in the night, the one that keeps you awake all the time.

There are secrets she keeps, ones that will burn you alive if you dry them out, and there are sins she will commit that will make the day shy away. But she will never once betray you - because the truth is this: the night eternal is keeper of secrets. Your mind will play tricks on you, deceive you into believing something is there, that something will harm you. The only thing that the shadows keep is Rika and Rika keeps you. You have nothing to fear from her.

Rika is the reason why people are afraid of the dark - because secrets can tear people asunder, can ruin and devastate them, for every secret is a truth and the truth burns with the weight of the sun.

She is honest, because honesty and truths are shared in the cover of ebony, sinful and sweet and something you never want to let go - it is the allure of the day that takes people away.

You can keep her if you pull the blinds closed and shush the world. It is enough for you not to be afraid of her, or her darkness or the coming of the dawn after - you know that you can trust her.. as much as you can trust the darkness to always be there. After all, you may stare into the dark abyss, but the abyss stares back.