![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
There's a poem that Effy Stonem knows by heart. One of the few, she thinks, where every word has been put perfectly in place, and not a single one can be taken away. Beautiful and delicate, but with a thread of truth that keeps it all standing tall. All around the island, people are powerful today— some reject their newfound abilities, others welcome them in full. But to each and every one, it seems to be a new experience that goes beyond their original awareness, even if Effy feels that each power has been carefully selected. A brush of Tony's hand, and she sees rainbows stretching across the sky, blazing and bright with color, but so far as to be unreachable. In the darkness, Jason's words still shoot straight through her chest, lingering there with a soft murmur that keeps her, today, from being alone.
"Some say the world will end in fire," she murmurs lightly to herself, raising a hand curiously, small flames licking from her fingertips and lapping at the air around. "Some say in ice." A murky gray climbs over her skin, trailing in diverging paths, feathered until it cuts off the small flame with a hiss, then melts away, leaving no trace there at all.
Her feet, buried in sand, send a chill up her spine, and the wind around seems to pick up in anticipation, sending her hair flying about in tangles.
"From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire." Carefully, she lowers the rest of her body to the beach, breath tight in her chest as she stares above, at clouds that roll by thunderously. "But if I had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction, ice is also great."
It's starting to hurt. Effy's brows pull shut with a soft gasp as her hands push off of the dunes, sand scattered over her skin, rough and unforgiving, seeming to pull a layer of her away with it. "And would suffice," she breathes, sitting up, crouching, fighting whatever it is— pain or weakness— that tries to stop her now. She's promised. She's promised that she could be strong, and for that to hold while all of this comes out at last, every single war and breath and emotion untold, she has to be able to weather through. Every stray thought and the hint of death hiding in the shadows, she wants to be rid of all of it, staring at her hands and willing them to freeze over. To harden her heart against everything that threatens to send walls crumbling down.
Instead, fire bursts from her shoulders, Effy's eyes quickly flitting from one to the other, hearing the crackle and spark of air around. It's not what she wanted, but maybe it'll have to do.
"Some say the world will end in fire," she murmurs lightly to herself, raising a hand curiously, small flames licking from her fingertips and lapping at the air around. "Some say in ice." A murky gray climbs over her skin, trailing in diverging paths, feathered until it cuts off the small flame with a hiss, then melts away, leaving no trace there at all.
Her feet, buried in sand, send a chill up her spine, and the wind around seems to pick up in anticipation, sending her hair flying about in tangles.
"From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire." Carefully, she lowers the rest of her body to the beach, breath tight in her chest as she stares above, at clouds that roll by thunderously. "But if I had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction, ice is also great."
It's starting to hurt. Effy's brows pull shut with a soft gasp as her hands push off of the dunes, sand scattered over her skin, rough and unforgiving, seeming to pull a layer of her away with it. "And would suffice," she breathes, sitting up, crouching, fighting whatever it is— pain or weakness— that tries to stop her now. She's promised. She's promised that she could be strong, and for that to hold while all of this comes out at last, every single war and breath and emotion untold, she has to be able to weather through. Every stray thought and the hint of death hiding in the shadows, she wants to be rid of all of it, staring at her hands and willing them to freeze over. To harden her heart against everything that threatens to send walls crumbling down.
Instead, fire bursts from her shoulders, Effy's eyes quickly flitting from one to the other, hearing the crackle and spark of air around. It's not what she wanted, but maybe it'll have to do.