ｍｏｏｎｌｉｇｈｔ

"and she is divine, untouchable terrifying, dangerous and heartbreaking and you’ve heard the stories, everyone has how those who try to reach the moon end up scorched by the sun instead" bea duhart. twenty four years old. waitress wanderer. artemis reborn.

[beaduhart-blog]

[yeswecancan]

[iralmock-deactivated20161013]

Daya watched in amusement as the other woman silently traced the word. It was quite odd meetng someone with so little expereine with alcohol, it brought many questions, chief among them was why had she picked a bar of all places if she wasn’t planning to drink. She looked out of place here, like those exotic flowers that lost all their beauty once plucked from the wilderness. All those observations couldnt be shared, of course. Daya didn’t want to appear presomptuous but truth was she was pretty good at reading people. A lot of the times sadly people were incredibly simple, nothing of depth to them and it become a chore to actually get to kow them. Her instincts told her it wasn’t the case for the beautiful brunette sitting next to her.

Daya followed suit as the girl made quick on taking her advice and a daiquiri cocktail was slid their way by the bartender. Unable to completely rid herself of her drinking habits, Daya opted for a caipirinha instead. “Don’t down it like you did the other. Savour it.” she said, teasingly as she gathered the sugar spread on the rim of her glass and licked it off her finger. She wasn’t really trying to be suggestive but some motions couldn’t but be and she had very ltittle notion of what was appropriate, never really changing her actions according to company.

[beaduhart-blog]

As the drink slid gracefully into Bea’s waiting palm, she assessed it. It was in a tall stemmed glass that had the delicate curves of a womanly physique. She trailed a slim, calloused finger along it. Vaguely pink, kind of pretty. Bea took special care to sip the liquid, letting it rest on her tongue for a bit before swallowing. The first assault of taste was sickeningly sweet, and her eyes flicked to the woman questioningly. Then, the bite of the alcohol encroached, and it was pleasant. The drink slid down her throat smoothly, leaving only the sweetness of the cranberry and the vague, masked bitterness of the alcohol. 

Bea stayed silent for a moment, taking another long drink of it, before nodding her head. “It’s very good,” she decided. If she were better at conversation, certainly she would have added something -- some sort of icebreaker, a turn over to the other woman. As it was, she simply cast her large, smoke-dark eyes opposite her, only allowing furtive flicks back toward her drinking partner. 

[lifeinpoetry]

You collapse my house of cards merely by breathing.

Margaret Atwood, from “Letters, Towards and Away,” The Circle Game: Poems (via ameliepoulaine)

[lightofhart-blog]

halfway meeting | Bobby & Bea

[lightofhart-blog]

She would do this over and over; she already had, stringing him after her easily while she deflected every attempt to open the discussion of his disappearance - or even to close it. Bobby wanted her to say something, to unstop the mouth that had to be bursting with unspoken truths. It was somehow worse to feel their proximity like a burn and yet never be able to touch her. At least with miles between them they had a reason (an excuse) for their distance. Then, he had worried nights away - both altruistically and selfishly - that Bea would be worn with missing, as he had been. 

That belief was shattered when he opened the door to their home, heart in his throat, the echo of those very nights still in his ears (Bea, Bea, Bea) and was met with her silence. And so the sun, he thought, bitterly, climbed to its perch in the sky to find the moon eluding its embrace still. What lives had she lived while he was away? What had he missed? And how could he have let himself miss it, even hair shed and nail clipped, all the banal manifestations of change that came with time’s passing. How could he not know Bea as he knew himself - better?

A step ahead of him, as she always was. Bobby followed, eyes on her back with a heated gaze - as he always did. And it was then, his fists slowly unclenching, that he recognised the hot, slurry swell of shame. He had left, and with his leaving a chain had broken; he had left her to Savannah’s barrenness, Apollo too brash and loud in his head for thoughts of his sister beyond, Artemis will watch over her. He had returned, penitent; Bea’s apathy hardened his regret into fury.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said, the petulance of youth creeping in. “It doesn’t fucking matter to me, how long you make me wait.” 

The empty street was their witness, as the town’s inhabitants slunk into their homes early. They whispered of unnamed dangers in the night - freaks turned animal, rabid, running amok. There was no wind to ease his words, to cool the heat of his anger; only the thick humidity of summer nights, almost tangible in its suffocation. Bobby reached for her hand - to drag her away from the night she slipped into so easily, to convince himself that her glimmering silhouette was real under the broken, flickering streetlamps.

“Beatrice, please. It’s been months! I know you’re - hell, I won’t know how you feel if you don’t tell me about it. What do you want me to say? I’ve said everything.” He tugged at her hand, hoping she would come to a stop. “Ignore me for a fucking year if you want, that’d be a fine comeuppance, but this - you can’t just pretend this isn’t happening. They’re gone. They’re gone and you - and I - you’re not in my head, fuck, not the way you used to be. Haven’t you felt that too? Aren’t you afraid of losing -”

Only a shadow of her, whispers, enough to make him want more. Only memories flitting through his thoughts, their childhood intimacy, the minutes and hours blurring into days of contentment without a moment apart. Only the reminder that they had been BEAANDBOBBY in his head long before the gods had emerged. “You can’t have forgotten,” he said. “You’re my sister, you can’t be - indifferent.” Because - sister, brother twin - it had to mean something.

He was a boy again, ripping himself from Leah’s grasp, her frightening love for her golden child. He was a boy again, clutching at Bea’s hand, waiting for her deliverance.

[beaduhart-blog]

Her steps halted when his hand clenched around her wrist. For a while, she merely stool still, unmoving, with her head cast to the ground. Refusing to look at him. Waiting, patiently, until he released her. In spite of her stubbornness, her forced apathy, she acknowledge how superficial that thought was. Even if he should unfurl his fingers, she would never be released from his grip. She knew that. Several hundred miles away, and she had still felt his hold. 

Her silence turned to contemplation. He was right. Artemis had left her, and so had her connection to the earth. Unlike him, though, she was unsurprised by it. Somewhere, deep beneath the sundarkened flesh, she knew she was never a goddess. He, now -- he, she marveled at. He was like a god, with his mellifluous sentences and his intellect and the way he glimmered with the strength of the sun itself. She was an untamed child, born of depravity and habit. Her mother had made it clear to her. Artemis had left because she had never belonged to Bea to begin with. The connection with the earth had been gifted to her by mistake, by association with her brother. No, no, no. A voice she ignored. Then he had deserted her, and the wilderness was all that remained for her. Dusk strolls turned to mornings, and she greeted the sun as if it were him. Each day, for over a year. 

When he had come back, she hadn’t spoken a word to him for a week. Instead, she quietly banished him from the home, which was then effectively hers. It had grown colorless and dirty, his lack inscribed about the floor, walls, cupboards. It was eight days later that she propped the porch door open without a word and made up a bed for him in the living room. Bea dealt in actions rather than words. 

She could not deny their importance, though; in fact, now more than ever she felt the void within her. Childish, vindictive. Words she would have applied had she the vocabulary. Her holding onto her fury was destructive, a nonphysical act of drawing blood. A pointed object to her own heart. She knew she was not being fair, but she also knew that she couldn’t forgive the ache in her heart. She couldn’t forgive how worthless his disappearance had made her feel. Reduced to Leah, to a woman left behind. To the pining woman who remained, while the man -- half of her -- went off to fulfill his dreams. That was a designation she would not embrace. She was the animal. She was the one who ran; the one who had him up at nights waiting for her return. Who would illicit a sigh of relief as she curled into bed beside him, pressing her shoulders into the cavity of his embrace. 

With his disappearance, she had felt like a girl again. Not just any girl, but a girl longing for a boy. As an act of counteracting, she had delved into the woods further than usual; stayed animal for days at a time. No one was expecting her at home, anyhow. She was truly feral and untamed. 

So when she looked at him, all she could feel was insignificant. Diminished beneath his glory. As if they did not fit together anymore, each having ventured into separate worlds. He had left her as if she did not matter; without a word, without a parting embrace, as if their connection was enough to span miles. It wasn’t. Not for her. She was tactile, a girl who needed to brush the pads of her fingers over surfaces and turn her knuckles white with squeezing. All she felt when she looked at him was poignant longing, and loneliness, and anger. All she felt was the stinging raw of her flesh as the night breeze tickled it. 

“There’s nothing I can say.” Can. Not would. It was true. Bea didn’t have the words. That was his domain. She was accustomed to keeping things locked tight within when hurt; to being silent as she endured harsh jibes from Leah. To holding onto her rage, storing it for later and then lashing out passively. So as she looked at him, it was all she could do not to pull away from his grasp. Some kind of offering, at least. Some little bit of her saying I am still yours. 

[awomanwithouthonor-deactivated2]

[januaryhoney]

you’re in love with waning (the moon looks prettier fading than it does growing & autumn has always been like glancing into a mirror). death and rot and dirt. love is a foreign tongue, a root buried in your mouth and forced down until it began to grow. love, a ticking bomb in your chest. a spiel you never quite knew the meaning of.

[howlingmp3]

we bit and tore our way into each others hearts, but the way we sewed up the wounds was so loving and tender. yes, i’m bloody and wild and yes, you’re a too bright disease, but the sun and the moon never get many opportunities to understand each other. we barely see each other. so we’ll love one another in the only ways we know how. with rough, clawing hands and and soft, worshipping kisses. in the blistering heat of the sun, and the comforting cold of the moon.

we bleed gold and cry silver // a.c (via mythaelogy)

[vversal]

[lightofhart-blog]

halfway meeting | Bobby & Bea

He waited for her outside the diner, leaning against the white brick. The sun was setting, and it made him nervous, not to feel it pass in his mind. Apollo should be uncurling from the day’s work, unwinding the tension that coiled in the pit of Bobby’s stomach when he couldn’t dance. And Apollo should be reaching for his sister; he should sense Artemis’ proximity and derive from it peace, contentment, triumph in their unity. But Apollo was conspicuously absent.

It was at the memorial service when the last trace of Apollo had vanished from his mind, the vague perception of the levels of health in those close to him, the sense of death like a heavy cloud - that awareness was blunted, too abruptly. And with it had gone the presence that tied Bobby to Bea even when they were apart, even when they did not speak, even through the cold nights in New York that burned, slow and agonising, in their loneliness. Apollo was still certain of Artemis’ devotion, and of his own to her, but Bobby could not say the same of himself.

Lie. And a lie to himself, a self-deception, the worst kind. He would always be hers; only once their intimacy had buoyed and sustained him, but now it weighed heavy on his heart.

The light, now faint on the horizon, limned the low Savannah skyline. Empty space was left where buildings had crumbled, casualties of war. To look at them was to feel the unsettled, anxious energy of the town in his bones, so Bobby looked at the ground instead. He traced the scrawls of graffiti on the pavement, shaping his foot instinctively en pointe. Time slipped away with waiting, as it always did with Bea close by - not even within his line of sight, but a glass door apart, barely anything at all, next to the hundreds of miles between New York and Savannah. 

But he grew impatient (and that, too, was something Apollo had instilled in him, the hunger for action, answer, anything, as long as it was true). When the door to the diner next swung open, Bobby turned his head sharply and met her eyes. “Took you long enough,” he said, before closing his eyes and taking a breath. It was easier, somehow, to do this without Apollo directing his words, flashing quickly to anger and resentment. “I didn’t mean that.” 

Truth. He hadn’t meant that in the least, and really what Bobby meant to say was, I’d wait, I’ve waited for you before, but I can’t do it forever. He was different, now - Apollo had changed him irrevocably.

He opened his eyes and looked at her, hard. A beat, and the sky grew too dark to see by; she was lit by the glow of streetlights and the diner’s neon signage, she flickered. “This is - unsustainable,” he snapped, at last. “You can’t keep behaving like this. You’re my sister." 

[beaduhart-blog]

How painfully empty her mind felt. It was cavernous, a vast thing with echoes that reached every corner. Accompanying it was the numbness to her limbs, the lack of dimension to her eyes, the nauseous whirling of her stomach. Bea trailed the soapy towel across the countertop, and as she caught glimpse of her hands she felt herself assessing them interestedly. Their sun-darkened boniness was confining, rather than empowering. The last time she had felt so horribly trapped was when she was sixteen, not yet an animal and not yet free of her mother. Now, each day meant rising, being, and falling in the same form. 

Bea’s instinctual, carnal response was to take to the woods anyhow, stripping of her clothes, trying to transform. Willing her body to change. It wouldn’t. 

To think, that the moment she was drained of all connection to the earth -- with a finality that made the hairs raise on her slim, brown arms -- was the memorial service. She stood alongside Bobby, though she boiled in a quiet rage. The thing she would never tell him played endlessly, tauntingly loud. The man’s words still echoed. His touch still smarted, ghosts of fingerprints on her wrists. She had only attended to piss on his grave. 

In present, Bea was acutely aware of her twin’s presence, just outside the swinging door. She was surprised to find that instead of making her move hastily, each swab of the table hurried and haphazard, she let her hands linger. She took her time in scraping dried bits of carnage, remnants of hamburgers and milkshakes, from the plastic surface. She wrung the rag out with methodical, tight twists. She took languid, slow strides to the back. She popped the top buttons open on her uniform, let herself breathe. Then she grabbed her belongings, a single faded black JanSport, and strode to the exit. It was time again to unite with him, and each time she did she was only reminded of the absence, the agony she had felt during it. Always aware of him, though; with his breath still whispering in her ear and his fingers in her hair. That was the worst of it, she decided. To feel so close, yet to part her lashes, look around, and find no one there. 

It was her repayment, she supposed. Her comeuppance. She had coerced him, in that way of hers, into abandoning their mother, and as a result, she had the same done to her. It had been months, admittedly, since his return. Ample opportunities, countless moments where she almost burst at her seams and revealed the raw, tender tissue beneath. Somehow Bea could not bring herself to let it go. She held onto it, clung to it with fingers bone-white with tension. With Artemis gone, it was more apparent than ever. At least the connection of she and Apollo, truly other worldly, had ensured some level of reconciliation. Now Bea had returned to acting as if nothing were wrong, yet illustrating that it was in every syllable, every turn of her shoulder. 

That was her approach as she emerged from the building, letting the night air envelop her. He was there. As he spoke, terse and harsh, Bea stiffened. Then he recounted it, and her eyes flicked to his. Closed, lids shielding the view. Figures they wouldn’t connect gaze at the same time, now. Was it Artemis and Apollo all along? 

Then they did, but the sun had other plans. It dipped too low, hid behind clouds, and the moon was all that remained in the sky. She could scarcely make out the planes of his face. He was a silhouette as he spoke. 

With a stubborn tightness in her jaw, Bea opted to feign the fool. With her gaze cool and unwavering, she calmly neglected to address what he wanted to. It was childish, how she denied him the right to dictate and direct the conversation. Instead of engaging him on the matter, she merely started walking, shoulder brushing past his. “It was only a few minutes.” 

[lejolisoleil]

[elegantissue]

[iralmock-deactivated20161013]

If Chronos had been conscious he would have probably heaved a sigh as if to say oh so predictable, and it was true that Daya had a routine when it came to spending nights out. She came home her belly filled with liquor or with a warm body plastered against hers. Both on blessed days. Instead the god remained silent, it was reassuring to still feel him even if he did not speak for while she wasn’t too fond of the dual thoughts aspect of being an incarnate, she did like the power that came with it and she was not done learning yet. She still had miles to go before she could fully control her ability. A little help from the father of time himself might have significantly sped up the process but for that she’d need to actually listen and the prospect was far from enticing to her.

For now the only person she had to listen to was the woman sitting next to her and the brunette was glad to observe that she had turned slightly, angling her body towards Daya. As far as body language went this was a pretty open position both figuratively and literally. Daya did not spend much time analyzing the woman’s behaviour however, preferring instead to lose herself in the contemplation of her beauty. She was even lovelier up close with her mane of wavy hair, lighter than Daya’s and less wild too. There was a sort of easy sophistication to her although nothing in her appearance, from her clothes to the almost total absence of make up that indicated she was cultivating it. The other feature catching her attention was the woman’s eyes, hues of green fixed in a focused yet curious gaze. And then there was the accent, a welcome distraction preventing Daya from staring at the other’s lips. “A Cranberry Daiquiri,” she said after consideration, “Rum’s the strongest alcohol you’ll find in that cocktail and in comparison to what you just swallowed, it’s so sweet it might as well be candy.”

[beaduhart-blog]

Cranberry. The other word Bea was unfamiliar with, but she catalogued the syllables so she could repeat it. It sounded so foreign and sultry on the opposite woman’s tongue that Bea had to try it out of sheer curiosity. The most she had ever had was whiskey, though the usual spread was light beer. Bea thought it tasted similar to toilet water, which she had unabashedly lapped up when transformed, and had hardly ever indulged on her own accord. Artemis’s conspicuous silence in her head was the only thing that compelled her to sip liquor -- or, rather, it was the memories that her absence left. Something with fruit in it seemed more in alignment with her taste preferences; she was given to sucking berries and gnawing at grape flesh when in animal form, her moist snout and sharp teeth getting sticky with the juice. 

“Sounds good,” Bea conceded, turning her head in a swift gesture that had the effect of a feline’s eyes sweeping for prey. When she caught the attention of the bartender, she relayed the woman’s recommendation with the addition of her twang (which turned the word into “dackry”). Without turning her chin again, her gaze flitted left to find the woman once more, in the very corner of her eye. The silence was pregnant between them, from both Bea’s imminent verdict of the drink and the undeniable magnetism of the woman herself. 

[warulik]

[lafemmemystifiee]

[metvmorqhoses]

Our innocence blood coloured, our obsession an echoe for the centuries to come. When love spoke, the voices of all the gods fell silenced.

forbidden love  (via mythaelogy)

[lorenanataliarivera-blog]

Lorena loved not having to go into an office every single damned day. She loved being able to set her own schedule– most of the time. She loved that her job required her to be outside all the time. Lorena loved her job. Her life… not so much. So far it had been messy and she had struggled, but not anymore. What Lorena loved most about her job were the horses. The fact that she could spend her time around the same creatures that had always made her feel happy, that had always given her hope. Chasing her dreams to Savannah just gave her hope, gave her the feeling that maybe things wouldn’t turn to shit again. Maybe she would be happy here.

The city was pretty fantastic in her opinion. There were lots of random places to go and things to see. There were even ghost tours– not that she believed in ghosts. Half the time, Lorena acted like she had never seen the city before. Like she was a tourist. She was used to being the tourist. The dark haired woman walked through part of the town, staring at the Spanish moss on the trees. She passed by a local shop filled with knickknacks. Maybe there would be some horse themed items in there that she could bring back to Nina Dimmond, the little girl she was training.

All the little trinkets lined the walls, and she was intrigued by them. There was so much crammed in the small shop, Lorena was lost in her own thoughts as she walked through. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally found something worth giving Nina. The dark haired girl picked up the small crystal horse and smiled. Nina would love it, she was sure. Lorena took it to the man who owned the shop and purchased the small trinket. Putting it in her purse, she left the shop.

Turned around by which direction she’d even come from, she took a left, not paying attention to in front of her, instead the sidewalk below her feet. Lorena ran smack into something, before even realizing what she had done. She looked up at the pole she had just ran into, her butt planted firmly on the ground. What an idiot, she thought to herself, continuing to sit on the ground and nurse the ankle that had caught on something when she fell. She looked up to see if anyone had seen her fall.

[beaduhart-blog]

The dreaded milk run. 

Bea would rather be running through the thick of the forest across the river. She would rather feel the breeze skimming her sun-darkened flesh, hair whirling in the wind’s grasp. She would rather have dirt caked black underneath her fingernails, the soles of her feet stained with soil and tinted with blood. She would rather, she would rather, she would rather. That was all she could think of; where she would rather be, what she would rather be doing. 

Instead, she charged the Savannah streets, moving hasty with impatience. Her tip money trilled and chimed in her pocket as the coins bounced off one another. Precisely the amount for the milk, counted out in advance. Typically, this was a particular torture she was spared from. Max would pick up the groceries, and she would devour them. Such was the cycle. On his last run, he had merely forgotten -- forgotten the viscous white liquid that Bea would lap up with her tongue. Then, she would stretch and purr and drift to sleep. That was the order of events, and not a single step could be sacrificed. So it came to be that the girl who despised mundanity and civility was marching down the city sidewalks in search of milk. She was particular, given that she had tasted it from the teet itself. Only one market’s raw milk would satiate her thirst, and it was still seven blocks away. Her pace quickened as she continued the long stretch, her face puckered bitterly. 

Several paces ahead, a woman rounded the corner. She was lean and fawn, deep eyes looking absently through Bea. Off into a world visible only to her. Daydreaming, caught up in her own thoughts. Bea noted the way her legs strode; how her hair leapt off her shoulders with each step. She had a lilt, one that took her further left. Bea tended to have the same. That veering took the other girl off the straight of the sidewalk, a lopsided path that spelled disaster. 

Bea started as she witnessed her impact with the lamppost, which had black paint peeling in chips. Ouch. Instincts ignited, and Bea was determined to assist. As she approached, the woman collapsed to the ground with a dull thud. Several more presses of heel to ground and Bea was looming over her, tall only because of the other girl’s vantage point. She silently outstretched her hand to help her up, the other gripping the pole. “Are you alright?” she questioned after a beat, eyes doe and sympathetic.