Whatever You Like // Tags + Icarus [Masquerade]

[loren]

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[atrb=cellSpacing,5,true][atrb=cellPadding,5,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border-left: 30px solid ffffff; border-right: 30px solid ffffff; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 430px; border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 0px;] i c a r u s f a l l s Well you'll see her when you fall asleep But never to touch and never to keep 'Cause you loved her too much And you dived too deep "You should take these though, a girl like me doesn't really have a use for them,"

[/i] she said, forcing the biting cold of metal into my hands, extinguishing the warmth the hearths of her palms provided mere seconds before. And I wanted nothing more than to snap the sticks that imprisoned me in a shatterproof fate, break the chains that anchored me to a night ended alone. I wanted to toss the gaudy valuables farther than my aching bones could throw, farther than my eyes could strain to see. Let's go back, Miss Taggerty. Let's go back and let me weigh you down with gold until you're buried with all that you're worth. Let's go back and you can tell me if you love your father, if you got those wild ringing locks from your mother. We can say every word our tongues have ever learnt and fashion new meanings once we're done. Let's go back and get caught by the Libertines, and forge a story about how I have an hour to live before the big, bad Ferryman hiding in my shoe comes to take my soul away but we both wanted to be royals before then. Then we could run off into the night until your legs could push no further and I was gasping for the air we walked on.

And my lips parted before I could stop myself. My desire to salvage the night and my newfound place beside her was much quicker and and sharper than my ability to deny myself, but luckily so was Taggerty. She broke the stillness with a chorus of laughter, "I just want to leave here with one thing, so taking all of that too would be overkill. I mean —" And I blinked, as if the motion would bring me clarity. "— you meant it, right? I can have whatever I want from you? Any one thing."

I wet my lips and managed to choke a cheap imitation of a laugh. And as she closed the distance between us once more I decided to play decipherer and attempt to decode the intent behind the cotton mask. Anything. Any one thing of mine is yours. I knew she wouldn't ask for some meaningless trinket; some pulseless ornament only perceived beautiful when illustrating the faces of two on its reflective surface. I hardly knew her at all; I read her cover the best I could and skimmed her chapters but hardly had enough time to compose a humble sonnet to preserve the night. And yet here I was, letting her fingers rewrite my jaw, sides of my face, tender flesh all too familiar with the sting of a flame but novel to the kiss of a benevolent touch. It was damn laughable and sad, how the menacing face of a cackling fire no longer prompted an eye's blink but an unarmed teenage girl had me holding my breath. Unarmed in the sense that she as far as I knew harbored no knives nor firearms. She did, however, hold all the cards that shepherded the last moments of the night. And for the first time in a long time I had no means to scheme or plot or severe ties like the renegade I always wanted to be. I wanted to be seventeen for twenty seconds and kiss a pretty girl who struck me dumb with fear and awe and all the sensations I felt when burning away settings and characters from my taciturn autobiography.

Hero or villain; the gods never let either rest easy. Hercules was driven mad and killed his wife and children, Achilles was both the greatest and weakest, Bellerophon was crippled from a fall, and Taggerty Eames unmasked us both just as I was sure I could trick myself into forgetting her name.

"Gotcha."

In so many more ways than one.

"See ya later, Icarus."

I closed my eyes, reliving each fault of the night that lead me here. I closed my eyes and calculated the odds of avoiding her should I keep to the shadier streets and neighborhoods. I closed my eyes and prayed to gods and stars and long gone ancestors that the dimness of the evening preserved my anonymity. I closed my eyes and saw the unmasked face I knew I'd look for in every crowd that should ever surround me. The face I couldn't let Bast escort across his damned river, and the only face I wasn't sure I could bring myself to burn.

That evening I flew too close to the sun, and she let me fall.
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Only know you've been high when you're feeling low
Only hate the road when you're missin' home
Only know you love her when you let her go

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[L△LIA]

[bg=FFFFFF][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=width,400,true][atrb=style,width: 400px; background-image: url(http://i40.tinypic.com/315okg8.png); background-repeat: no-repeat; padding-left:40px; padding-right:40px; padding-top:40px; border-left:1px solid #000000; border-right:1px solid #000000; border-top:1px solid #000000; -moz-border-radius-topright: 25px; border-radius-topright: 25px; -moz-border-radius-topleft: 25px; border-radius-topleft: 25px;opacity: 1;] I'll never go home again. After a night like this — everything I've dreamed into reality, with more yet to come — I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to the girl I was before. Something within me has changed, although I can't pinpoint quite what. It's the retuning of heartstrings to the key of a new melody; a swelling of the lungs; the way a person's bones rise up out of the nothingness of passing years until we forget that we were never this tall in our beginning. A smile tugs itself so wide across my lips that the muscles in my cheeks start to ache, but I'm not about to tell this feeling to get lost, not when I'd rather dare it further to see just how much I can handle. The night is as young as we are, this was only the first round of our match-up. Each step is one of accomplishment, echoing with pride as the crowd swallows me back into the madness. I, the ever eager Cheshire with the wicked grin, reappear as if from nothingness. Go ahead and think that I've been off to nowhere, pretty strangers, you don't need to know the better truth. Just now, I have lived a daydream and I wear the evidence of black satin upon my face with brazen swagger, a thief dancing in the middle of a crime scene and a whole sea of people none the wiser. I want to laugh and jump and scream over everything I've just done, but the only person who shares my criminal joy is lost behind me now. I tell myself not to turn around again. Don't look back, because every fleeting second of that goodbye was flawless. I mean it. Taggerty Eames, you were a badass and if you throw even just one glance back over your shoulder to see if he's still watching you walk away, he'll know you were faking it, trying your damnedest to be made of aces when really you had no idea what you were doing. For god's sake, girl, let the cute boy think you're amazing. Don't look, don't look, don't look... oh my god, please, just one peek? NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. Don't you dare ruin one of the only genuinely cool moments of your life. But I can't stop myself, even if this one small turn of my face back towards his is a declaration that I'm not made of mythical fiction. There's no denying that I want to see his reaction, that I feel like I'm missing out if I can't catch a glimpse of my own possible greatness reflected in his expression, but the crowd saves me from myself. All I can see is a wall of masked faces, none of which hold even a flicker of appreciation for my dramatics. That stupid voice in the back of my head reassures me it's for the best, despite the disappointment flaring within me. Yet, I know I'm lying as I attempt to trick myself into believing that this sinking feeling has nothing to do with my being certain that the magic we stole wasn't only in my head, haloed by an idea that he might follow after me. I tell myself I wasn't hoping that he'd stay. The undeniable truth, however, is that tonight was made for playing pretend and I guess that's why, for a second there, I was convinced I might not be the only person here thinking I'd never go home again. we're all the things that we do for fun (and I'll breathe and it goes) p l a y a l o n g (make-believe it's hyper real) but I live in a hologram with you