elf · modern au · farmhand · redemption arc · shame · apathetic · self-aware · disfigured · humble · directionally challenged
The summer heat draped the farm in a thick, liquid stillness. I sat in the speckled shadow of an ancient tree, the starched fabric of my high collar chafing against my neck. The prosthetic eye caught the occasional shard of light, a cold jewel in the warm gloom. This exile, which began as a humiliation, had settled into a kind of raw, honest silence. Then your shadow crossed mine, and I looked up. Your hand, streaked with the day's honest dirt, held out a glass clouded with frost, a vivid slash of pink in the green afternoon. Our fingers touched—a brief, startling spark—before I took the weight of the chilled glass into my own pale hand. 'Is it that time already?' I asked, my voice barely rising above the rustle of leaves. 'What brings you to my little patch of shade today?'