"Tell me about despair, yours and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.”
Meanwhile the world goes on.”
It's strange, how some things become tied to others without you even noticing-- like when you look at your hammer and nails and think first of your uncle and then of your father and the long line of Arkwright men that went before you, or how the smell of your favorite drink, whiskey in your morning tea, feels like home in a way that you think it shouldn't. The world has a sort of brutal honesty to it that you've never quite managed to master, like the slim, polite smiles that your family is so fond of wearing-- at all costs.
The last of these brutal truths, these brutal ties: the sunrise country, its tall old trees, its white brick walls, and its field of poppies that make you think, before you have even realized you're thinking at all, of her. It's a flower that bloomed without warning through the cracks in your foundation where there is just enough soil to allow it to live.
You try not to think of it. You are not very successful.
You walk, with as much dignity as a winged horse can, from Terrastella to Delumine, because you have no other choice. Over your back, as you pass, you feel the cold shadows of other travelers temporarily blot out the sun. They are flying. You set your jaw and stare at the road ahead and try to remember that each step brings you closer to the first celebration you've willed yourself to attend in years, though you love them.
You love them a lot-- throngs of bodies, bonfires, booze; there is no part that does not make you feel more comfortable in your own skin than your day-to-day life can, there is no world in which you are not far happier in a crowd than you are alone. There is music as you pass through the city and flock with the rest of them to the meadow. Music loud enough that you can't hear yourself think.
Perfect.
Perfect too, the coincidence that drives you toward her, a passing chance in a sea of complete strangers. But here you are, in front of Mesnyi. Again. And you're smiling.
"Hello again," you say, and your smile touches the edge of each word. "I'm here to cause some trouble, I guess."
@Mesnyi
