send 💖 to hold my muse’s hand!
The icicle broke into shards.
Layer by layer, bits of cold shrapnel exploded from the contact point. Permafrost that had been left alone for years–if not hundreds of years–cracked and exploded out. Like an orb weaver’s web, it reached out towards them in repetitive scythes.
Here, the ice did not glisten and shine. Here, there were no blinding kaleidoscopes to be had. Here, like Yamini’s dark, mercury-mirrored scales, dirty ice laced into the walls like ripped up doilies. Stalactites peppered the ceiling like spearheads from the ground after war, bone-colored and transparent to the light of her glow. Her orange flashed, casting the cave in a brilliant sunset before the color faded back into herself.
His hands were cold. Her hands laced through his, the warmth of her fingers probably scalding to the touch. It was so cold. The floor was so cold. Every step back she took to accommodate his weight reverberated throughout the cave, causing a cacophony of crashes in the distance–like blowing off the top of wine-filled glasses, like a lyre plucked the wrong way–she could only take more steps further and further until her back pressed deep into the cavern’s frosted walls in a large crater. And came the finale of shattered glass in the distance, her body having knocked those without resilience to the floor. It was cold. Snowflakes and particles of sleet tumbled down the curved walls, seasoning her red locks with cold flakes.
“Be–careful!!” she growled, coughing out the sudden pressure in painful, gasping sputters, the warmth of her hand creating steam between them. She put her other hand on his cheek. The tips of her fingers brushed against his ear, her palm cupped his face gently. Flames sparked around her eyes, around her hair–and warm air coasted around her. She slowly set him down, his awkward size dwarfing her. “You’re lucky that you’re quick on your feet, Asmodian!!”
… despite her gruff aggression, her fingers nonetheless wrapped around the tips of his. Gently. Tightly. Her other hand had now moved under his chin and she focused on warming the other side of his face, the flickering flames dancing harmlessly about her cheeks. She stared into his eyes, the striking blue the inverse of her own Pidgeon’s Blood red. She sighed and let herself slip down the cavern’s wall and sat herself on the floor. Her hair splayed out about her in wet, raggedy waves. Her sword etched into the ice as it slid down into the floor, making a deep cut telltale of a freshly sharpened blade.
The hand that had been cradling his face now moved to his nose and she pinched it with her thumb and index. Hard.
