Rojo

itshigh-boop:

Inspired by @angesiren‘s post here

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“Even with this, you manage to be an oddity.”

Sombra ignores Lacroix’s comment, her voice as smooth and cold as her lucerne skin. She knows those eerie golden eyes of her are glaring at the back of her head. Lacroix understands very well the emotion that lies locked in Sombra’s heart, it’s just she can no longer care or relate to it. Sombra knows this and tries to ignore the otherwise pointed rudeness in the sniper’s observation.

The sensation in her chest, what once began as a gentle tickle now burns her lungs as she shakes, coughing and covering her mouth with a closed fist. The less attention she brings to her ailment, the better for her. She’s been a shadow for so long – it’s only fitting she disappears like one as well: quietly, unknowingly.

She chokes and finally, the offending object lodges itself out of her throat and into her hand. Sombra blinks slowly, clearing her throat to alleviate the stinging pain and lingering ache before her fingers spread open to reveal a delicate red petal resting upon her palm.

Letting a finger trace the soft edges of the petal, she, once again, since she’s developed her illness, admires the man’s choice in flowers. She saw many of them grow in Coahuila and near the border of Mexico when she lived much further north than Castillo. They used to be nothing more than plants – things she’d never give a second glance to. Now, she stops to admire them anytime she happens to see them sprouting, whether it be in a walled-off garden or next to a rotting wooden fence on an off-beaten trail. She knows it must be morbid to find beauty in the symbol of her demise but she finds it comforting. When she can’t touch what she so desperately wants to touch, the flowers are the next best thing. When she plucks one to gingerly trail across her lips, she imagines that the soft touch might be what a kiss – shared, not taken – might feel like. When she plucks a few more to take home with her – to keep in a small vase, she imagines that it’s like taking a piece of him home with her, the flowers watching over her as she sleeps.

Sombra is aware that her rationale is an exhausting stretch but it doesn’t stop her from living vehemently through her imagination. Why should it bother her? The same stretches very well having been the reason she’s in this predicament in the first place.

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