On dusty, broken shores he looked at her when her eyes were on the sky. There were swirls of mossy green dancing against the blue. Her lips should have been curved in a smile. But Eska didn't smile. She wasn't frowning either. Her expression was caught between the two as if in puzzlement or nothingness. It was as if a sculptor got tired of chipping away at the surface and left her unfinished.
Her hair was flecked with snowflakes. He wanted to pluck them out of her dark strands before they evaporated. They didn't deserve to touch her.
Desna was her shadow. She was the stronger one, but she couldn't sleep without him near. She was more talkative, cleverer…she got them out of trouble almost as much as she got them into it. Waist deep and wrecking their heads for a good lie, but Unalaq just pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
Eska buttoned Desna around her like a coat. He was the veins through which her blood flowed. He was the skin that barely veiled her bones. He was flooded with bitterness when she stuck her rotten tongue in Bolin's mouth. She needed to be looked at when he couldn't look at her. She needed to be held when he couldn't hold her. When Bolin's eyes fluttered shut she kept hers open. She stared at Desna and he stared back at her. Bolin's lashes tickled her eyes and his boyish charm was enough to make her love him in her own little way.
Desna waited until they were alone. He counted down the hours and minutes in his head until only seconds remained. He shut the door and rested against it and exhaled deeply as if he had been holding his breath. The wood was cooling on his palms. His bare feet sank into the soft fibers of the carpet. He was with her and nothing mattered until the morning's blush and then the process of waiting started all over again. Other people fluttered through, but they weren't important. They weren't her.
He left the lights off as she got undressed. He knew every curve of her. She turned from off to on in the darkness. She did her take on smiling. Her mouth was a tight straight line and then suddenly for the briefest of moments the left corner of her mouth would tug up slightly.
The way she said his name made him flinch. Her voice was black organza pulling him in and never letting go. He drank in her broodiness, her dry wit, her silence. Her fingers were long and slender and stretched to the bluish grey hew of the moonlight.
They slept in separate beds. There was an end table between them. On hers was some morbid memorabilia. On his sat a lamp from a city he would never see. The marble was a stark contrast from the rustic interior. A dusty book rested on the edge. Its spine hadn't been cracked and its pages were untouched. It was a fixture.
"I don't want to get married. Not ever."
Desna wondered that brought this on. Was it something father said? Or did she see Bolin with Korra? Bolin looked at Korra the way Desna looked at Eska. Full of gangly longing and the tiniest inkling of hope that they would turn to them, their feelings reflected to the point of splintering, and whisper, "Okay." Surrender echoed in their bones.
When she got her feelings pinpricked it wasn't a drop of blood that bubbled up to the surface it was a current that soaked her to the bones. He hated them for hurting her.
"Tell me you won't get married." Her voice was a barely audible murmur against the backdrop of snowfall and sleep depreciation.
"What about Bolin?" Desna asked as if somehow his name would strike something in her she herself didn't recognize.
Eska swallowed thickly and turned to look at him even though she couldn't see in the dark. Her black hair was sprawled on the pillow like coal dusting the snow.
"He's temporary." Everything and one was temporary except them.
She wanted him to tell her that they'd be together forever.
"I won't get married." Desna reassured.
Eska smiled even though she knew he was lying.
'Come here.' He said silently.
She scurried under his blanket. They slept like they used to sleep when he was sick and she wouldn't leave his side. He would lie so still and cold to the point she couldn't emulate. He breathed in shallowly. His voice was raspy and he coughed through the night. She wouldn't eat or drink until he did. Her heartbeat was loud in his ear and her skin was hot against his cheek.
They went back to their separate beds in the morning.