Work Text:
Soft ice-blonde hair spun like silk, delicately weaving itself around a loom. The sight was just as gentle as the girl herself, even though she strode with pride and ambition through the halls of Rosemeadow. A flower, she was, a strong stem standing up straight and powerful with her petals tight-knit together.
Together, oh, together. That girl had it all together.
Shy dark eyes watched her bounce from friend to friend, group to group, blending in with each like a social chameleon. The eyes' owner that peered from a distance could only dream of being that capable, that confident — having the world in her very hands.
But the special thing about that girl was how she handled it with such care, never daring to control or hurt it no matter how much it thrashed in her palms.
... No, that wasn't the only special thing about her. She was a cluster of bundled-up specialness... but that was the thing that stood out the most to Hailey Austin, the dark-eyed girl who was cursed with only watching from afar.
The pining, oh, the pining. The miserable ways that Daisy could make her pine.
Hailey jotted down Daisy's features, watching intently — she wished she could trap this love and admiration into the jar of her heart, to be tucked away so these feelings would stop persisting and killing her every time she acknowledges they could never be reciprocated.
But that, of course, would imply that her love for Daisy was in any way under her control, and, of course, it wasn't. She was the one prisoner to her love for that girl and it seemed like it would never let her go...
The heart-shaped face to match the pale hair turned around, feeling a pair of eyes on her. Hailey couldn't help but admire the smallest of her movements, not when they all perfectly reflected the kind person Daisy was. She still kept staring with sad, dark eyes, her brain hopelessly believing that if she looked hard enough she might get what she wanted.
Of course, that would never be true, but it didn't stop her from trying.
Daisy smoothed her hair as she searched for the source of her uneasy feeling, but it was calmed instantly when she saw whose eyes were on her. She gave a brief, reserved wave, a small smile forming on her lips.
And Hailey was astounded that such a simple movement could endear her heart to the point she could feel it sink deeper into her chest — she writhed inside as she felt it beat quicker, quicker, quicker until she felt sick and overwhelmed — oh, how, how could love do this to her? How could she forget what life was like before it? And how, how most of all could she love that love do this to her?
... Eventually, she did have to ask herself whether she really wanted it to stop. The impending dread that knotted and twisted her stomach had tangled itself inside of her, growing tall and strong just as Daisy does. Those vines, they festered at a rapid pace. She felt more tied up in the moss than she ever had been.
But it was that worry, that unfamiliarity of love she had never experienced before that confused her the most... how could she enjoy the teasing of her own heart? The torment was beautiful, to that dark-eyed Hailey Austin, and in its own beautiful way, managed to make her yearn for its pain.
It hurt, it did. It was a wrath whose grip on her heartstrings would never soften. But the important thing was that her old life and its sad monotony was gone.
She never knew a person could feel so alive. But after seeing Daisy for the first time, after breaking her neck when she fell into the tragedy that was the never-ending pit of love...
Alive, oh, alive. The way that girl could make her feel so alive.