It began as a thought, poking and prodding and refusing to be ignored, until it compelled him to be rid of it by acting upon it. It just happened to be Isla, and for the life of him he couldn't return a single article of clothing to her (washed by hand, of course, even though his mother always said that he shouldn't do such a thing in case his soft hands would be roughened by work). She would always be lost in the crowd, or in sight one second and gone the next. Fleeting, like a dream, but present, as his thoughts of her. And, after much inquiry, he managed to find out where her last class was, and stood patiently at the door before reaching for her hand as she passed, aiming to pull her aside to give her the skirt that was in the paper bag he held in his hands. "You forgot something," he told her with a grin, holding up the bag and ignoring the little anxieties that nagged in the back of his mind.
[ text : Isla ] Good morning, sunshine! Would it be alright if I asked for your company to start my day? I’m sure seeing you would make the day 100 – no, 1000 !! – times better!!
Send ✉ for a text that wasn’t sent
[ text : Isla ] I think I love you in a way you don’t want to be loved right now, but that’s okay! Maybe I’ll love you in a way you need to be loved if we spend more time with each other, then I won’t hurt you anymore!
Send ☎ for a rushed text
[ text : Isla ] call u later need to swim coach is shouting at me again for smiling at my phone
Send ☏ for a loving text
[ text : Isla ] You are such an important person to me, Isla Kyle.
Send ⁇ for a drunk text
[ text : Isla ] y me lmao
[ text : Isla ] u know i’m alaaaaamae
[ text : Isla ] lame
[ text : Isla ] right
[ text : Isla ] also whre am i
[ text : Isla ] i rhnk i’m in an aley
[ text : Isla ] alle
[ text : Isla ] alley
[ text : Isla ] my f c e hur ts
[ text : Isla ] WHERE S MY WALLET
Send ø for a late night text
[ text : Isla ] I would like to tell you before I sleep that your welcome present is the first and last thing I see everyday and I am still not tired of looking at it!
23. Our muses are destined to fall in love with each other,but cannot be in a relationship with each other because.
Steven White had always thought that graduation night –specifically, the party that came with it – would consist of pleasant talk overwine and cheese and good food. Clearly, he’d been expecting too much. All yearhe’d been ‘missing out’ on parties, and he’d always assumed that it was thekind of organised, shallow gatherings that he was so tragically used to. Nowthat his studies and everything else was out of the way, he decided that hemight as well go to one high schoolgathering in his life.
Here heroes and royals and thieves and murderers and allthat lay in between were enjoying the last dredges of youth – or, maybe, theyhad always been. There was tiredness in the eyes of those who attended andthose who left. There were so many people, so many faces he could recogniseand who probably couldn’t recognise him back, with the way they moved as ifthey wouldn’t be able to tell if they were about to fall with every step.
And it was one of these familiar faces in the dark that eventually fellon him – someone was bound to, hesupposed – and he, at first, thought it was Troi, except Troi was…God-knew-where,and hopefully not here.
Isla hadn’t fallen on him before; she was usually the paragon of balance that it was almost enviable. (He hadn’t seen her undersuch dim lighting, either; he liked it better when he could see her properly.)
Imagine his surprise, then, when she was the one who pulled away just as he was about to ask if shewas okay. She mouthed words he couldn’t understand, and he gave a small chucklebefore tapping his ear. “I can’t hear you!” he told her, and she might havesaid the same thing.
And Steven, being the genius that he was, took her hand and ledher farther away from the music, where people were sparse and all the alcoholhe could smell was from the red cup she held.
She let go of his hand first. (Maybe he wanted her to hold on a little bit longer.)
“Didn’t you hear me?!” she asked, as if she was offended bysomething he said, and he only looked upon her, confused.
“U-uhm….no?”
This seemed to infuriate her further – he hadn’t noticed herfrown, then, but he did so now, and with furious vigour she drank more, beforethrowing the empty cup at his chest.
“I’m in love with you, you idiot!” He blinked, struck intosilence, and she took his surprise as room to say more. “And now – now I’mgoing to forget you!”
“Isla…”
“You – you wasted my time, my tears – heck, my life!” He flinched, then, and reachedfor her, but she only swatted his hand away. “Don’ttouch me! You know what? I’m gladyou’re leaving!”
He didn’t know if she could hear the way his ribs weresinking, becoming smaller, and here she stepped closer, and punched where ithurt the most.
“Good riddance, you stupid prince!”
With every word she punched him, and he remained quiet, andafter a while so did she. The fists that hit him so drunkenly ended up beingcurled against his shirt, and he wondered, then, if there was still a heartbeatleft. He stood motionless, for a while, and attempted to come to terms with thefact that her words hit harder than any kind of beating. He wondered if shecould hear it now: the steady beating of a heart she’d stepped on, the slowcreaking of tired bones when he wrapped his arms around her before she pulledaway again, the crackling of a dying flame in the soft words that a drunk girlwill not remember. They were soft, too, and if she had been sober she would’vesaid something about how his confession was every bit as gentle as he was,whispered and drowned out in a sea of mumbled voices in the background.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was not his own. She was a storm andshe shook in his arms and he was a weathered cottage attempting to holdtogether in the face of her tears, even when he could not see them. “For tonight,and tomorrow, and the next, and all the days for when I cannot repay thatkindness.”
She raised her gaze to him, then, and behind the inebriatedhaze and tear-filled eyes that clouded her vision she might have understoodwhat he meant. And he, too, wondered if she had really meant what she saidbefore.
Kisses between heroes and thieves weren’t sweet, Stevenrealised. They were full of stolen hearts and the regret of things that couldnot be returned after they were already damaged. Her arms were around his neckand he was kissing her and kissing her until he felt as if she was filling hislungs and the tiny spaces between his ribs until they expanded again.
“You never gave my heart back,” he muttered against hermouth, and she laughed bitterly.
“Neither did you.”
“You can keep mine, then,” he told her, leaning backslightly to wipe away the tears that stained her cheeks. They did not relentwhen he smiled; they only seemed to pour harder. I’m sorry.
Her face fell against the crook of her neck and there hewondered if this would be his last memory of her.
(Probably.)
She was the only one he’d told his plans to, aside from hisparents, and he knew that not many people would take it well. He had hisreasons, of course. It wasn’t that he hated being a prince; his time here hadsimply taught him something more valuable than academics. Everyone did notshoulder the weight of the world and he didn’t have to, either. It was the fearof freedom that had him tethered to the spot. Perhaps Atlas wanted to swallowthe world instead of carry the burden of all the sins of its people. Stevenwanted to save it, but he was no hero. He was just a stupid prince, as she so aptly described, and he wanted to learnhow to live. And for that, he needed to truly be free, stripped of title andties, and only after would he return again.
Just because he’d explained it to her didn’t mean she’d takeit well, either.
“Why do you want to disappear so much?” she mumbled, and hisshirt felt like it (he) would tear if she held onto it (him) any tighter. Hecould not answer because they both already knew. A pause, a sniffle. “All thistime, I thought…”
“The feeling was one-sided?” She punched him again for that,but said nothing else.
“Let’s get you to your room,” he told her, hands gentlyprying her fists off of his shirt, and holding onto them. There was hope in hereyes that she had convinced him to at least stay in contact with her, and hewondered if she would remember in the morning, and if she would be disappointedthen by the result.
He kissed her as she fell asleep and kissed her when he wokeup and she remained in deep slumber. He hoped she wasn’t dreaming of him, andthat when he left, she wouldn’t continue to. Steven didn’t want to break herheart any more than he already had.
(But she had been, and he did, and he wouldn’t know how theemptiness he’d left behind would be something Isla would see in the spacesbetween everything else.)
It was one of those days where she was looking for something interesting to look at. The academy may be home to heroes, villains and neutrals alike yet it wasn’t as exciting as it seems. Classes provided very little room for freedom so as usual she was found lurking in the shadows, Just trying to be as stealthy as possible. She had scared a dove or two that wandered inside the hallways. Maybe a first year too but then she forgot to wear her contacts today. So that wasn’t too surprising.
As she was walking towards her next class (art was truly her subject), she caught eye of a familiar-looking girl. She wasn’t sure why but she felt like she wanted to follow her. Her instincts told her that they had seen each other before but they didn’t really exchange words. Maybe they passed each other in the hallway. Or in the cafeteria. But she was sure she had seen her once and before she could stop herself, she was already following her closely. This wasn’t random or uncommon behavior for someone like Katy.
Soon enough, when she caught sight of her face, she remember. “AH!!!!” She shouted, startling those who were walking in their vicinity. With a light jog, she closed the distance between them and stepped in front of the girl. With a serious expression, she put both of her hands on her shoulders and in a whisper. “You. You will teach me your ways.”
To say that Steven merely 'liked' bow ties would be an understatement. He had an entire collection of it, and most of that he brought with him to Elias, even though it was only during weekends that he got to wear them, if ever. However, he didn't expect to come back to his room after swimming practice with his bow ties stuck to the walls, and a girl just about ready to jump out the window. "Wait!" he called out, alarmed, realising now that the latter, apparently, was a bigger concern. "Don't -- don't do that! It's dangerous! G-get away from the window...please..."
Send me “Dare!” and I’ll generate a dare for my muse to do.
28. Kiss over the underwear of the asker sensually for two minutes.
Every decent scientist knew that data could not only begathered from one source. Jack was well aware that the reaction of strangersand those with emotional attachment were significantly different when appliedthe same treatment. However, she wasn’t keen on gathering a wide array of data;she couldn’t go around kissing everyone’s underwear sensually, after all. Thus,Alexa and Isla would have to do as test subjects for now. Granted, Jack wouldprobably be more encouraged to kiss someone’s underwear if they weren’t arelative stranger, but she had toremain detached. Somehow.
So she held the girl’s hand, led her to the science lab, andlocked the door behind them. She didn’t want Isla -- cute, not-so-little Isla – to have blackmail materialhanging over her head. “Sit over there. It won’t take too long, you know. It’sjust two minutes.” She laughed a little, tucked away a stray strand behind herear. “For research purposes, Scout. All in the name of science!” Jack, ofcourse, was impatient, eager to get this somewhat lewd experiment done for the sakeof sating curiosity. No sane person would understand, of course, but she was countingon Isla knowing her well enough to expect the least sane approach to dealingwith a cursed, inquisitive mind. (Besides, it would be fun if Jack was the onlyone holding this experience over her head; to allow others that same freedomwould take away the value of the act, now, wouldn’t it?)
For most, this would be a hard task, but Lileas was the queen of bug eating when she was a child. The amount of times her mouth had been rinsed out by her mother simply for eating a worm was ridiculous, far too high to count, and so she looked at the ladybug with pity. “Sorry about this little guy.” She paused. “Or girl.” Opening her mouth wide, just for show of course, she let the bug slide into her mouth, chewing it for a few seconds before swallowing. “Mm, tastes like chicken.”
