A Garden of Flowers and Bones [Lloyd Garmadon x Reader]

Chapter 13: I know you want me to be afraid (I know you want me to love you)

For the next five days, there was no sign of him.

Of course there wouldn't be any sign of him, he said so himself, that he'd be going back home and unable to see her. Still, she kept looking out at the expanse of the sky, into the trees, wondering when he'd return.

She shouldn't have felt anything other than relief when his figure didn't appear among the green- a bit of time away from the Faer man who kept harassing her should have been a blessing. Instead, it left her insides feeling hollow. In part because she missed him. In part because she was terrified of the fact she missed him. She shouldn't have been missing him. 

But she did, and that was bad.

How could she want that? To want to see some Fae man with nefarious intentions towards her? It made her feel sick to her stomach, her stomach churning and her lungs squeezing around emptiness, as if trying to breathe in nothing. In the morning, she'd wake up and look outside and kiss her sister on the forehead and make her breakfast and walk out, surrounded by vegetation on all sides, the rich colour of green that matched his gaze.

Those viridescent eyes that shouldn't conceivably exist. That flawless face that was to clear and smooth like a rock shaped by the ocean. No visible pores, all the same colour until the lighting changed and the carved shape of his jawline and cheekbones glistened under the sun. He didn't look real. And his face hadn't changed any since they had met- all youthful and impossibly handsome as if painted by some omnipotent god with the intention of encapsulating a rhapsody of perfection within him.

It was still a horrifying appearance- like an imitation of humanity attempting to lure her into a false sense of security. There were no mismatched proportions as stories told around campfires would have one believe. It was akin to coming across a random person on the street, only to realise- by chance, completely offhandedly for just a split second- that the rise and fall of their chest was exaggerated. Falsified, mechanical. Like someone was pretending to breathe. 

Everything else about that 'person' would be the same. Human in all other aspects that you could see with your eyes upon a quick glance. But that one flaw had called your attention. And the illusion collapsed around you, revealing a more and more inconsistencies thst you hadn't noticed at first. The fingers were too long, the eyelids were twitchy, the wide grin that had no business being there if they were a normal human just going about their day. For what purpose would anyone smile that wide when just walking around, mouth unmoving as if their lips and teeth were locked in place?

Blondie- the Fae- was like that.

Almost normal, until you saw one difference. And then another would come to light, until he was a contradictory visage- an amalgamation of traits that should've been normal, that would've looked normal if it was on anybody else, yet all together these things coalesced and created something truly monstrous. A bizarre and otherworldly picture, mimicking reason when it was anything but.

It was only natural to fear such things. He was abnormal, and that should be feared. Fear was an instinct that had kept humans alive for a long, long time. It was necessary to Y/N's survival to be afraid of that surreal face and all the eerie expressions that twisted it like roots beneath the earth, digging in, squirming over one another like the feeling of dread that weighed heavy in her chest.

To fear was to remind herself of what he was.

And yet, it came to this point. Against all odds, he'd managed to trick her... but then, trickery was the Faer's speciality, wasn't it? It shouldn't have been so surprising. He'd managed to tear her gaze away from that surface that terrified her. He'd managed to make her feel safe in his presence, so that he could cover that awful truth with a sweet, pillowy quilt of lies. A comforting image to drown herself in. And it was to the point that she almost couldn't even see those razor sharp teeth for the danger that they were whenever he was smiling, instead, allowing herself to sink into the deception and be invited by it.