[P] the vine & the rain & the light

[Apolonia]

I CAN SEE THE FUTURE, IT'S A REAL DARK PLACE -

She thinks she might understand why her mother fell in love with him, at the moment that she sees his smile: gleaming in the crooked night, it is the kind of bright, carefree grin that makes the urge to smile back completely irresistible, and for that moment Apolonia is a child and noting more, doting over her father in the cool desert, under the stars.

It is without a thought that she leans into his touch, comforted by the ease of letting someone else hold her weight. It is not a comfort she lets herself feel often. And if she notices the way his amber eyes linger on the hurlbat at her hip, pretty only in the contrast it makes against the gold of her skin, she does not mention it: if he’s expecting an apology, or an excuse (and it seems he might be) that is not a gift O is willing to give him.

His voice is a song in the wind, over the cool sand. O shifts to find a better foothold in the dunes. Just wandering, she drawls. Couldn’t sleep. It’s not uncommon for her, this kind of wandering. Her mother lives all in day, her father all in night, and Apolonia straddles the thin, dusky line halving her heart with not so much grace - startling awake in the middle of the night or at the crack of dawn, trying to find some way to compromise. And what are you doing here? You’re farther from home than I am - 

She smiles a sheepish kind of smile, wavering, almost. Like she’s not sure she wants to admit that their homes are not the same.