you shouldn't have to pay for your love
with your bones and your flesh
with your bones and your flesh
He breathes in the incense and breathes out uncertainty, sea-glass eyes fixated upon the woman cloaked in shadows. There are answers here, to the endless questions that circle around his mind, to the constant weight it seems his narrow shoulders must bear. “You are still here because change is still coming for you.” The soothsayer reads as if spotting an omen, her movements sharp and quick, and he is equally as fascinated by her quick movements as he is her surety in his future -- that there was a future for him at all.
There is change coming for him, and he is equally terrified and excited -- change has never been a good thing, has always led to strife and worry, to the God’s laughter and his own overwhelming sense of hopelessness. “Leave my tent but not this world.” She tells him, in a tone of voice that would tolerate no disobedience, and it is all he can do to gather himself and dip his head in farewell with thanks murmured under his breath.
When he stumbles from the tent, buried beneath the sheer silks that make up his outfit, he finds himself running into the draft mare just outside. There is no anger at her eavesdropping, only a quiet sense of relief that maybe this is a sign -- maybe he doesn’t have to keep bearing the weight of all of his secrets that are not his to keep, of all the trauma he has endured.
“It’s a long story,” He warns, softly -- but even as he does, he falls in step with the mare, tipping his head back so that he can look up towards her, the candlelight catching the scars across the bridge of his nose.
@
you were only a boy,
when you were thrown into a war.
when you were thrown into a war.
