013.
THE
MEADOW
: ̗̀➛
A newly found sunshine blared and dappled through Alena's blinds, cascading and rippling across her room. Endorsing it in a well loved glow.
A strange wave of anticipation over took her when she realised her looming arrangements for the day, it waned and wavered relenting bouts of worry.
Yesterday still she presumed a bad dream she would be able to shrug off, but begrudgingly it lingered against her skin.
A house brimming with silence surrounded her, it let fears and relinquished anxiety seep in and lay at her feet, fretfully unaware she waited. A knock rolled at the door and the pit in her stomach deepened as though a hole would be torn straight through.
Gingerly she pulled open the door and there stood Edward. Flowing and open adorned in a purely ambivalent white shirt, he was like a religious icon made to be adored. He was summer and succinct coastal walks, it was unearthly reassurance.
"Are you ready?"
Blazing eyes raking through her own, asking a plethora of questions more than the one he ushered. Feigning a hand towards her she grasped it and relished in the searing cold fingers that entangled around her own.
It was warm for May, Forks was growing weary of the blistering rain as if begging for a break it had been granted it, but now at these fickle companions joining hand in hand faint clouds sailing over the sun, encasing them in a perpetual darkness.
Their drive was hummed, a subtle quiet sitting between the two. Neither knew how to broach a simple question, their visage of confidence shattered. Until parting the silence and him relishing in her voice, she spoke up.
"So where are we headed?"
A hint of a smirk graced his lips, crooning his face to a perfect image.
"You'll see."
"That's unfair, just tell me. You better not be luring me to my untimely death Edward."
She whined causing a chuckle to escape his mouth, glancing at her inquisitive stare.
"No and no, you'll just have to be patient."
After the never ending highway, and seemingly incessant questions they pulled up to a hapless curb.
Alena gave Edward a curious stare, the succinct quiet of his mind enamouring him with a new found serenity.
Impossibly imperceptible he now stood opening her door, reaching out a hand. Gingerly she accepted, now amused at her belated sense of fear.
"Maybe I should've mentioned my extreme disliking of hikes."
She tried to add a humorous lilt to her voice, but the anxious glare trailing over her eye hinted she was deadly serious.
He chuckled and enticed her with a smile faintly pulling her fingertips into a walk and towards the trees, utterly enthralled she put up no fight and trailed along behind his icy grasp.
Every step he lurched a new question towards her, she gratefully indulged answering avidly at his curious countenance and remarkable knack of questioning.
He watched and wished to breathe, to be near her was eternity. The lope of her walk and supple contained limbs forgave his sins, she was pure and he innocent. They became articulately naive, and with their naivety came restless beauty.
After what felt like hours to Alena she turned on her heels and faced a smiling Edward.
"How much further, I don't think I can continue any more we've been walking for centuries."
Her teasing exaggeration bemused him, his feet edged closer smiling at her waning frown.
"It's been 45 minutes Alena, hardly an eternity. But there is one thing that could speed this up."
A knowing smirk settled across his lips, causing Alena to look on with utmost perplexity at this rather odd boy.
"Oh yeah and what's that?" She grinned at his now encouraging stare.
"Well there's a few let's say advantages us vampires have."
He leaned down hovering close to Alena, ushering her onto his back. His laugh rumbled through her torso. Before she knew it, they were gone.
Minutes flashed beyond them like seconds, evergreen blurred and bark seared. All while as every leaf crept closer Edward grinned fervently. She held him so tightly, she feared he may fracture. For the most part her eyes remained closed, ever so fretfully peeking when he slowed at a corner.
As fast as it was abrupt he halted, that same look plastered over his frail features.
"Well." His pride oozed from his lips slinking and slipping to his feet when he noticed Alena's distant expression.
Her body lurched her torso hovering above her knees. After a few moments of unknowing, she stood rather cautiously and laughed.
"It was definitely something, but nothing I would wish to re do in the foreseeable future."
He laughed beside her, bemused and quite frankly elated.
Now arrived at the supposed destination her eyes scanned the vicinity, a wall of trees encircled a sun lit pasture in the distance, not quite catching on she looked to Edward for reassurance.
"It's just through there, you see the gap between the leaves and sun, that's the place I love."
Exhileration settling in her nerves her feet pondered towards the trees.
Low and behold a sanctum lay just mere inches from her forbidden steps, beautifully naive and unearthly perfect.
A meadow of billowing life inflicted upon her, rays of sun grating across embers of soul. The unkept trickle of a stream reluctant in the distance. She thought for a quiet moment, maybe this just might be heaven.
She felt the cold of her shadow no longer beside her, turning and now placing him beside a shadowed tree.
A swallow look waning at the curve of his mouth, he grew timid like a young child waiting to be introduced. Ultimately unsure, and the most scared he'd been in a century.
Crude sunlight danced at his feet, as if mocking his existence alone taunting him with self loathing.
Alena walked unaware of his relentless upheaval of guilt, shallowly as though she succumbed to his very thoughts alone, offered a hand to the man in the shadows.
He enlisted her to the arctic and took a step beside the girl.
They continued to take reluctant steps, edging further and further from the forest. But as the trailing sun hit the frost of his face, Edward recoiled from her warming grasp.
Alena turned and faced her own tragedy, she watched as diamonds fell and fear glistened, delicate mirages traipsed across his skin. Beautifully dredging up tears he'd forfeited to shedding, his beauty had damned her. As she stared, he peered submissively beguiling Alena to offer up hope for him, a resolution he could grasp and hide away with.
"Edward."
She sat on her thoughts delicately, unsure of what words to put together. He turned from the scrutiny of her gaze.
"It's beautiful."
He scoffed a bitter smile cruelly placed on his lips, and she looked on. Mesmerised at the mirrors playing across his ghostly pallor.
She walked and he followed masterfully in her grasp, they sat and neither said a word.
But in untimely acceptance she reached out, partially asking for utmost permission. Caressing the smooth alabaster sheen that relented across his cheekbone.
A warmth that subdued his fear of being loathed, he embodied her touch careening into her hand and sitting in utter sunshine.
His eyes flickered open, to be met with a smile.
He was dead and beautifully alive when he saw her. She too him was a life, she breathed the oxygen that relented from his lungs the thrum of blood was his ichor. Her consuming mortality thrived within his own veins. Edward could almost feel the familiar pulse within his own chest, just looking at the fervently alive girl infront of him.
She was the stake left waiting in his heart, he was damned and she naive. He was a diabolical sinner tempting her to death. And Alena sat so purely accepting of it, like her fate had been assured and she smiled at the offer.
Alena could see thousands of days here, years stretching into decades and soon centuries would flitter past on the seasons. An eternity could be endured and she'd coddle it with open arms, him being her forever. That simply became what she longed for amongst these flowers. Almost as though for once her own thoughts seeped into Edward's mind, his hand tousled through the grass and took hers upon within the cold.
And for once in Edward's life as they lay there, feeling the company of their shadows combine, his untidy world was silent. A quiet so still the only sound careening his ears were breaths, that mingled with heartbeats. That was his most favourite silence.
Slowly he allowed himself to sit up, Alena on noticing this disturbance of their sanctum did also.
"I want to try something."
He hushed the words so delicately, that they may not be heard at all. But she did.
A smile took to her lips, and a chuckle rolled from his tongue.
"May I kiss you Alena Swan."
"You may."
The supple crimson of life met with the ashy taste of death, and their worlds crumbled. The sweet ichor of her existence mingling with his doomed simplicity.
Pulling away and timid breaths lingering as one another. They looked upon each other, and they smiled because they had found eternity, wrapped up beyond every blade of grass and every trickle of sunlight.