CURSED: FROM THE BEGINNING [D.M]

-(13) you believe in love?

ZILLIAH breaks out into a run, holding her gown up as she does lest she should trip and fall down. It was really hard running through snow in a dress and not to mention barefoot too but with the adrenaline picking up in her veins, she pushes on.

"Emerson- for fuck's sake. WAIT!!", Draco growls out from behind but damned will she be if she were to heed his words.

She laughs, free and loud, and continues running, halting only on arriving at a clearing in the woods behind the manor- a bunch of trees pushing aside to give the night sky a theatrical view- quite enthralling and exquisite- purely eccentric.

Something about her thought arises a question. She turns back and sees Draco ten feet away- bent over on his knees, panting. She holds her laughter back and shouts out, "The words that start with e are quite often royal and beautiful, don't you think?"

"Huh?!" He shouts back confused, trying to catch his breath as he does.

"You know like enchanting, ebbulient, electric, elegant, ethereal, and such such. They seem so grandly mesmerizing."

"Yeah.. but there are also empty, evil, excruciating and evasive. You know?"

"Doesn't contradict my initial statement, though. Does it?"

He shoots his head up but before their eyes could meet, she turns back with a small smile. Taking in a deep and free breath, she soaks in the beauty before her.

The sky was particularly brilliant tonight with more stars than usual. It was also a half moon night- her favorite- a reminder of how there's always more than what meets the eye.

Perhaps the sky knew. Perhaps it wanted her to have this. Perhaps it felt pity for her tragic existence. Perhaps this might even be a gift for all the nights she had accompanied it in it's loneliness, bathing in it's beauty, telling a million tales without opening her mouth once.

Perhaps. Just perhaps.

"You're so fucking fast!" She hears Draco's grumbling as he catches up with her, his breaths still troubled.

"Maybe you're just too slow", she turns back and teases him with a chuckle escaping her lips.

"Shut up!", he groans, fixing a glare upon her as he bends over on his knees once more. "We should go back."

"Whyyyyy?" She intentionally drags the word out and makes a pouty face.

"It's dangerous to be out here at night, Emerson."

"But it's so prettyyyy!!!!", she tries to reason, gesturing behind her.

His glare gives away but he still stares. Like stares and stares. And even despite the cold, she can feel her veins burning with his gaze. His breathing starts to normalise as he speaks next and she can make out a low chuckle too. "You're too fond of the stars."

"They're just.. so intricate and elegant, aren't they?", she mumbles, turning back and looking at them as if she was seeing them for the first time when in reality, she had watched them through a thousand times over. "They're always there, you know? They never leave.. like, ever. You can always rely on them. They're even there during the day. Hidden by all the light. I cannot see them then", she turns back to him and holds his eye before continuing. "But I know they are there and.. it's more than enough.. just that feeling of comfort. And I know when everything gets dark, they'll show up again. Like they always do."

He just stares at her as if he was trying to read her very soul, his face lit up by the moonlight. He leans back up straight, towering much above her and she can make out the slightest quirk of his lips. "You should be a poet."