𝐥𝐮𝐧𝐚𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐬 | carlisle cullen (3)

(𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐲-𝐭𝐰𝐨) when it's all over

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"BEAUTIFUL AREN'T THEY?" A voice came from her left, cool and elegant.

Estella presumed he was talking about the celebration, the dresses and the grandeur. She could tell simply from his voice that he belonged in the canopy where she should be now, drinking and talking of her fathers new inventions.

"I suppose, yes... a bit over the top for my taste" She replied, her eyes tracing over a new constellation.

"I meant the stars"

Estella didn't think about dragging her eyes away from the heavens yet in the next moment she found her gaze glued to the man standing next to her. His gaze was turned upwards just as hers had been. Estella didn't know quite what to think when she looked at him, he was unmistakably breathtaking. His hair was a faint shade of gold, his skin like pearls. His eyes dark and unfeeling. He seemed to reflect the moonlight rather than the beacon of the flames before him.

There was something very different about him, something Estella couldn't place. She'd met a lot of men, men with the same status. However she had never cared for any, they were bland and mirrored in their upbringing and their arrogance. This man had spoken merely a string of words yet Estella was removed from the belief that he could be anything like the pompous clones she'd talked with. It didn't make sense for opinions to swirl in her mind when she knew nothing about him. It didn't make sense but Estella wished not to question it.

Suddenly the man looked away from the sky and turned instead to stare directly at her. His eyes sparked amber for a moment, Estella believed it must've been the fire. She was aware she'd been staring but she didn't like the idea of being caught doing it.

"Yes they are... beautiful" Estella murmured, trying to set her eyes on the constellations again. Somehow she couldn't fall back into the effortless trance she'd been in before. Now all she could feel was the heightened awareness of the presence next to her. He stood a good distance away, not so close that her thoughts would become tangled yet she felt she'd imagined him.

Every so often she'd glance to the left, making sure he was still there. He always was, unmoving. His gaze fixated on the sky. Estella wondered whether -like her- he wasn't as absorbed in the stars as he pretend to be yet if he was -like her- spiralling with thoughts of the stranger ten feet away from him he never showed it.

It must've been her third glance to the side, maybe her fourth when he met her eyes yet again. They hadn't spoken in the majority of the moment spent in each others company yet for some reason she felt a sense of knowing as his dark ,presumably black, eyes landed on hers.

"Do you dance?" He asked.

Estella attributed his voice to the idea of silk. It was soft and incredibly comforting yet there was something cold about his tone. His eyes, despite their lack of colour, radiated that he was happy to be talking to her.

"I can dance" Estella replied.

He mellowed in this information for a moment and for the first time while they'd been standing, he turned his attention towards the canopy and the people dancing within it. For a while they'd been playing the same melancholy, slow songs with no real meaning but as the strangers turned to each other the music seemed to get more upbeat. Estella was suddenly wondering whether she'd made the right choice saying she could dance.

"Dance with me"

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It was slow, tedious, like the starting of fire or the kindling of lost spirits yet fast like lights flashing before eyes in blazed memories. Gently, her mind seemed to move through tunnels of reconciliation as her fingers skated over the dark stone walls in front of her. Estella blinked and for a moment she didn't know who she was. For a moment she was still a stranger in her own body filled with the torment of never knowing, never remembering, never living. She was alone and for a moment, that would be all she ever knew.