Treasure | Ateez

| 07 |

"quod abundat non obstat"

- What is abundant, does not hinder

☾ ☾ ☾

Divinity will stain your fingers and mouth like a pomegranate.

It will swallow you whole and spit you out, wine-dark and wanting. Yet you will reach out for it again, greedy fingers clutching anything - everything - you can reach. Divinity will curl its way through your veins and take you over, and it will not leave quietly. It will stay with its lingering taste, so beautifully macabre, and it will call for you. 

Aeris had tasted divinity, she had felt it in her bones like aching ; like fire. 

It consumed her. Each breath a reminder of the darkness that ran through her, the living embodiment of death that she controlled. Each movement a painful rattle for escape, each waking moment a thoughtless act of passing through the day. 

The nine did not talk to her that night. 

She had sat by the mast, climbing to the top and staring into the ever increasing sea of blue, her mind wandering through the revelation and the display of power the captain had shown her. It should scare her, it should make her want to escape. 

Instead, she felt relieved. 

They will kill you

They do not like you

"They are like me" 

Her thoughts carried out over the blowing wind, spoken to nothing and heard by no one, a conversation with herself, or maybe it wasn't even that. 

"I thought there was no one else, I saw him with the water. I guess its with elements, am I right?" Aeris chuckled, fingering the necklace hidden behind her clothes, the seams of her dress tearing at the bottom from her climb, a layer of grime settled over it from her kidnapping "Water. I saw the other boy - San, I think - flying sometime ago, thats air. It was nice" 

Joy was a feeling Aeris was foreign with, it was something she had not experienced to quite understand. She had seen the people around her smile, laughing with their heads thrown back and faces sparkling with mirth at the jokes the other others cracked or looking back at their memories of trips or incidents that were funny. 

They said joy was something everyone experienced. She wished she could be everyone once too. 

"They all are very happy, but they dont trust me. Don't worry, the feelings mutual. They brought me here, this is their fault. Of Course they are weary, I am too." 

"Are you planning on spending the whole day here?" 

Aeris turned around with a gasp, reaching for her missing dagger before noticing the flying blonde haired boy who sat a few inches away from her, staring into the horizon with a small smile. 

"yes" 

"would you like some company?" San asked, turning to her with a smile "it gets lonely sometimes" 

Aeris did not know how to reply. 

"I'll take that as a yes, Im San!" He sounded excited at introducing himself, the dimples on his cheeks enunciating at his wide smile - causing his eyes to almost disappear into two crescents - as he pointed at himself. "what about you?" 

"Uh-" she paused. 

This was something new. 

She never had to introduce herself, everyone usually knew who she was. Or the court officials announced it. And as the blonde looked at her, she realised she had forgotten how to say her own name.