I CLOSE MY EYES AND I FIND YOU
”I thought you were Icarus at first.”
Her words drift across the open water, filling the space between them, and Aion flinches visibly. It’s in his nature to take her words as an insult, to assume first and ask questions later (or never). This time is no different.
”That you flew too high and the sun melted your wings to nothing.” Aion recoils, water splashing back into the river as he lifts his head. His eyes are a flash of ice, blue and cold and distant, when he first turns to look at her.
But the look in her eyes makes him pause, and catch his breath. Water dribbles down his muzzle, pitter-patters back to the oasis from where it came, sending ripples skipping across the pool.
She looks at him like he’s the sun, reaching for him and the magic coursing across his feathers, and he tucks his wings ever closer to his sides. His indignation dissipates then, as quickly as it had come, and he’s only a boy again, embarrassed and afraid of the spotlight. And when he speaks it’s not out of anger, with words laced with defense - his voice is as boyish and curious as he was when he was younger.
“Thank you,” he says, though he isn’t sure if he’s thanking her for her companionship or her tip - or perhaps it’s for the compliment in her eyes, in the way she holds herself back from touching his wings. “It’s been a long time since I last flew, and never somewhere so warm as Solterra.”
He looks at her, at her narrow body with wings that seem almost too-big and too-broad, but he can’t imagine any others in their stead. The green of her eyes stood out so vibrantly, like a pair of beacons against the pale desert and the dark backdrop of her face.
A small voice whispers that he should be assumed, to take the advice of a young girl - but another voice, a wiser one, doesn’t seem to mind.
“Are you from Solterra?” he asks, listening to the second voice. Or did you learn about the temperature changes somehow else?
walk. "talk."
