Shuck the Fire.
There was quite a spread laying across the rumpled futon mat and it's heavy blanket. Bottles of oils, bags of scented salts, jars of milk bath, some manner of fizzy things a woman put in some water, an assortment of bar soaps, and several containers of some wet oil soaps. All of the rolanberry scented items had been set aside in their own neat little pile, including a very pretty, summery pink lip balm. The rest sat in a clutter at the other end of the mat. Pale eyes settled on them beneath long lashes, like stars peeking through the trees in the shroud.
A shop opened, and right near the house. Lucky, right?
Those eyes leveled on three small vials of lip stain with a look of contempt. Clear, a pale pink, and a deep red that looked like someone had spilled their life blood within it. The sweet scent of that shop clung terribly upon the white sweater, which was quickly removed and neatly folded to be placed on the soft mat with the scarf and it's clasp.
"...You smell nice, by the way. You didn't have to gussy up for lil' old me."
A pale nose wrinkled with a look of venom and disgust at the memory of the voice and words.
What woman wouldn't want a beauty shop so close. It's not even five minutes away. Right around the corner.
A glass of whisky was tossed back, and the following breath held, savoring the burn with closed eyes, and head tilted back against the stone wall behind, and memories played through her mind. This time the bottle came, another gulp, then a second, before the vapor was sighed away with the lingering afterthoughts.
The small bag on it's braided chain was pulled from the inside of the thin undershirt, and opened into a small, pale palm. Four solid objects rattled out, and the sensation of long nails biting skin followed as the hand clutched tight around them. Soon then tension eased, and the fingers creaked open to reveal that shattered half of white stone, two heart shaped earrings of blackened metal and soft red gems, and a ring. The ring was kept, as the rest of the items were reverently placed back inside.
"It was made by Tzenef...that's why."
The words rang through the mind, justifying it's place within the bag, as those eyes once more leveled on it. Blackened silver with beautiful black and white stones with their symbolic entwining.
"As darkness meeting light!"
A different voice rang out from the same distant place - older, and far more cheerful. The ring was replaced in the bag with a dismissive grunt. The locks were checked, and the necklace too found itself discarded into the pile of products. The irony of it falling onto the lip stain did not go amiss, and there was a lingering stare that held no small amount of bile.
The rest of the clothing was quickly discarded as the Miqo'te walked the length of the room, across the grass floor, past the stone walls under the ivy, and into the room with the bath. The pale light of the moon lit along the pale surface that was more scars than skin. The entirety of the living quarters was alive. Ivy, grass, small trees, flowers, stone, even the bath itself was stone and rock built like a small stream and waterfall. The comforts of home. The only difference being the water that the aching body sank into was as warm as a spring.
The long pipe that had been fit with Sylphic oils was plucked and lit, pale blue smoke drug inwards in a slow, deep breath, which was eventually sighed out. Slowly the Miqo'te sank lower, until only the hand holding it, and a nose was out of the water - it was still wrinkled bitterly, crinkling a spattering of white freckles. The built waterfall rushed warm water along the back of a mane of white, and the mind was left to wander.
Singing Stream. She said she would help. She seemed to love the idea of peace, and she had always seemed well-meaning. Perhaps there were dark secrets in the elder's past, but the past was exactly that. She had only now met the woman, and that is who she would remain until proven otherwise. She would form her own opinion yet...and there was something about the woman that lingered. She was so like Tzenef.
Berrod was another to think on. He spoke of agreeing to want peace, but refused to make it. He trusted no elder but the one he called his master. A complicated thing to speak of want, but refusing to act, all for mistrust. Surely that wouldn't make this path impossible, but it certainly made it far more difficult.
How many were like him?
The mind wandered further, to a fire that burned, and always consumed in the stifling clutches of night. Out of longing to quench the flames, the pipe was placed down the rest of the Miqo'te sank deep beneath the water to be consumed in it's silence, and the dull roar of flowing water.
The mind traveled deeper.
Down into the silence. Into peace and that vast, empty canyon that seemed so opposite to the equally full well of what was yet unknown. Something in that emptiness clung, like eyes you couldn't escape. Like being stalked through thick, choking forest by some slinking predator. Hunted. Like a coeurl that followed, waiting for it's prey's fleeing to bring exhaustion and an easy kill.
"When the moon is full...and I've pried..."
In the other direction was that well. That unknown. It beckoned like a lover. It held so many wonderful sensations that brought such an aching itch. Straying too close seemed to bring the greater threat. One of being consumed and burned alive from within by that bright whiteness.
It felt so pure...So warm...
"I'll shuck all the light from my skin and I'll light it in you."
There was a burning deep within the lungs as Shizu shot up from the water with a gasp, upsetting much of it upon the floor and walls a clumsy sprawling of arms and hands clung to a larger stone facing the tank of fish that seemed quite startled by the sudden outburst. There was a wheezing, startled panting for air, the only sound in the room. Too long thinking, and with the concussion barring sleep for those few days--
There was more sloshing as wet feet landed on damp grass after stepping unceremoniously from the water, and a towel was wrapped tight to dry the scarred expanse of pale skin. The Miqo'te plopped defeated back down next to the pile of clothing, and again the pale eyes lingered on that small bag on the vials. Eventually it was snatched up and placed back on.
The towel was moved to the long wet hair, re-wrapped, there was a dull thud of body meeting cloth as Shizu gave in and fell onto the empty side of the futon mat, rolling to one side, back turned to the products on the blanket. Those eyes stared emptily across the room to longer on some of the pale night flowers that were still mostly open and draped along with the rest of the vines. Eventually the covers were thrown up to cover the cat completely. A hand slunk out to pull the half empty bottle beneath, and then again to snatch the second pillow.
That dull burning never did fade. Hammersmith was right...
"It's like your head is crumbled and hiding in you..."