life's but a walking shadow
Eik is a good listener, his quiet intensity drawing the story word by word from Indra’s lips, emboldening her to continue. He has a gift for attention, she decides absently, in the small corner of her mind that is still swimming in a golden haze, high above the jagged landscape of memory. Beneath his gaze, she feels that nothing she might say will be stupid, or ridiculous, or too impossible to believe.
As her tale draws to a close, she feels Eik drawing closer, too, though he has not taken so much as a step more in her direction. There is something simmering beneath his skin, bright and fierce and surging at the edges, and something rises up inside of Indra in response. She has the sudden impulse to touch him, to swallow up the tiny gap of night that quivers with their mingled breath.
But he speaks, and the simple compassion of his words helps to level her, to wind her back into herself. She inclines her horn ever so slightly in gratitude. And she is grateful, she realizes, glancing again at Eik. There is a raw, ugly wound inside her chest, and she has been ignoring it for so long, walling herself off from it—allowing it to fester. Hers is a difficult truth, and bitter, and a stinging thing to own. But perhaps this is the sting of healing.
And then Eik shares his truth, four quiet, spartan words that have Indra’s heart seizing in her throat. Her golden eyes fly to his, but he is looking away, now, his expression impossible to read and all the more painful for it. Had. No detail, no lengthy explanation, could cut as cleanly and deeply as that single word.
“I—” am so sorry, she wants to say, but even as she opens her mouth the words die on her lips, woefully inadequate. What can she hope to say that is not trite and shallow in the face of such a loss? Her own secret feels trivial by comparison—a strange life led, yes, but nothing next to the horrible wrongness of a father forced to mourn his child.
Already Eik is calling for more drinks, and Indra feels the silence radiating between them. She reaches out, pressing her muzzle gently to his shoulder, hoping to express what cannot be put into words.
In the lull of their conversation, music drifts back to her over the fields. She lifts her head, remembering the piper, and the dancers, and the wild spin of the festival. Dawn is pushing at the fringes of the horizon now, a delicate rosy gray, and Indra is surprised to find herself unready for the night to end.
“Let’s dance,” she says suddenly. She has never danced, but right now she doesn’t care. She gives a playful tug at Eik’s mane before turning away, willing him to follow her. It could be a mistake, to try for levity, but something in her wonders if perhaps this is what he needs: not a distraction, not to make light of things—but to go on living, and begin anew.
She winds her way through the crowds, resisting the urge to look back, to see if Eik is at her heels. The music courses swiftly alongside the golden liquor in her veins. By slow degrees the sky is growing lighter, but the stars still shine, and the horses still dance, and for a moment Indra wants nothing more than to dissolve herself among them.
i n d r a
@
this is now like two seasons ago, ha) and have them run into each other again elsewhere xD
