Daemons in the Mist

Chapter 18 - Your Eyes

18

Your Eyes

Friday, January 20th

PATRICK

                        

“Okay…I’ll show you what I really look like—just promise me you won’t bolt for the door okay?” Nualla looked so frightened as she said it, as if she truly feared I would. I tried to speak but couldn’t find my voice, so I just nodded. She swallowed hard and squeezed her eyes shut. I looked at Nualla unblinking, so I wouldn’t miss a thing, but nothing happened.

I began to worry. Did I miss something? And then the air around her began to shimmer and change; like a ripple in a pond, but not like it at the same time. Slowly the image of her rematerialized into focus. Two dark blue ribbed horns swirled back from just above her ears, delicate and beautiful like a gazelle.

They were utterly captivating—that is, until she opened her eyes again. I was lost in them, their silvery blue glow drawing all of my attention as if there was nothing to look at but her. Everything around her fell away so that there was nothing but those eyes; eyes like captured moonlight. They drew you in, enticing, seductive, and luminous like a jungle cat’s. A fog crept into my brain dulling my senses to everything but them.

I must have been staring at her like an idiot, because she finally averted her eyes. “Please say something,” Nualla said in a small voice that was almost swallowed up by the music around us.

The minute she averted her eyes the fog in my head started to lift, and I found my voice again. “You’re beautiful…” I said, my voice trailing off as her eyes shot back up to mine.

She apparently hadn’t been expecting me to say that; it was plainly obvious in the look on her face. “What did you say?”

“Yes…wait—what were we talking about?” I couldn’t think straight when I looked into her eyes. Hell, I couldn’t even remember to breathe. I managed to tear my eyes away and look down at the table. “You must know how beautiful you are?”

“Then why can’t you look at me?” she asked uneasily.

“Your eyes—they’re so mesmerizing, I can’t think straight when I look into them.”

“Oh!” she said, startled. “Is this better?”

I looked back up; the mesmerizing twinkling glow had dissipated to a more tolerable amount. They were still enchanting, but not to the point where I was going to keel over from forgetting to breathe. “Yes.”

Nualla still looked uncomfortable, but a lot less terrified. Before tonight, I had never seen her look anything other than fearlessly beautiful. She always seemed to live life like a duck in a pond, problems rolling off her back like they were nothing more than water drops.

I reached out a tentative hand trying my hardest to keep it from shaking, fearing that if it did she would bolt like a frightened deer. Quietly I asked, “Can I touch them?”

She moved back ever so slightly. “My horns?”

I nodded.

She ran her teeth over her bottom lip and looked down to the side then back up at me again. “Sure…I guess.”

I extended my hand toward her, lightly touching the curved horns. They were very solid, no illusion there. I drew my hand across the ribbed surface then down her cheek letting it rest there. “How anyone could think of your kind as monsters is beyond me. You’re the most beautiful person I have ever seen.”