𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧 (𝐊𝐍𝐘 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫)

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝟸 - 𝙷𝚒𝚜 𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝙴𝚢𝚎𝚜

It was cold.

It was cold, even as the snow turned to ash, and especially when my frozen breath turned into nothing but fog as it pushed the dark matter away from my face, which was already covered in it.

It was a mix of purity and hate, salt and sugar, lemon and lime, hope and revenge...but they all had the same aftereffects.

I thought it was impossible to light a fire in the nippy air, and yet I was surrounded by it, its touch not too far away from me, but still just out of reach. I could only feel its silent taunts. Just moments out of reach, even as it's grasp slithered up the wooden beams and its breathless smoke lifted into the once pure horizon, now only filled with ash and ebony smoke.

All I could do was stand there, my hand gripping my bleeding arm as a drop of blood leaked down the side of my face. My pupils were shaking, my breath was radged, my vision was in a constant battle of unfocusing and seeing things as clear as day.

She was missing. She was right in front of me only a moment ago, right before everything became clouded by smoke and ash. It was the look of pure horror on her features that threw me off guard, even if it was just for a moment, I couldn't let it jump out of my mind, no matter how hard I tried.

I had never seen her beautiful face morphed into something so unsightly and frightening. I thought I would never need to, and yet...

The way her pupils shrunk, the way her lips parted, trying to let out some sort of word, the way she reached her palm out to me desperately, jumping forward just to reach my form, despite the dangers that surrounded us...

It was truly a horrid sight.

I used to think that the minute she showed her fear, it would mean it's the end of days, and even then, I was convinced she would keep her wonderful smile over her lips. But. But I was wrong. So, so very wrong that I couldn't half believe it as soon as she called my name in a frenzy.

I didn't mean to wander away from her, it was only for a moment. I thought I saw a group of pink chained pearls on the ground among the crowd, just a small way into a shaded alley, that was only filled with more food stalls stocked with anything you could imagine. It was as pure as everything around me on the main street. I wanted to give them to her, to show her I cared no matter how many times I denied it. I was proven wrong, however, when I turned to smile at her as she cried my name, and the beads disappeared in the blink of an eye, swept up by a being who passed me in mere milliseconds.

I promise I meant no harm in doing so, especially when everything felt so perfect, when everything inside me wanted to cry in pure joy of the moment I had been anticipating for months on end, never shutting up about it until my siblings cried at me for hours on end, practically begging me to stop.

I was left momentarily sad until mother walked into the room and smiled at me. She asked to know more about my excited nature towards the market, that only perked up every anon. She took me to her room, sat me on her bed, and sat behind me, braiding through my hair as she hummed at my words that never really reached her ears.