High above flew a Swift herd – just passing through. They won’t land here, in this place of heretics, where they have never claimed a roost of their own. They will talk to no one, make no contact. Here and gone again on their migration path.
Below them shudders a girl.
Like Swifts above so below: Ianthe had never meant to land here. She was meant to be like a passing cloud, a whisper of wind, the herd above. And yet she stands in an open field of lush grass just now browning with the oncoming winter, her heart in her ears and an ache all through her.
Her right wing drapes to the ground, the bone closest to her body pushing against her skin where it’s been broken a little more than halfway down. She knows what happens to limbs healed wrong – has seen Swifts with once broken legs struggle to land and walk – but she doesn’t know how to fix it (doesn’t think she can fix it). A grounded Swift is a dead one.
And she can’t fly.
A breath that would have been a scream, if only she could muster up the energy for it, punches from her chest, and she stumbles on solid ground. The earth hasn’t been able to lay solid claim on her since she was two months old and leaping off a ledge. To now be here, knowing that she can’t reach the sky plunges a knife under her heart, driving pain through her with every beat.
It’s a wonder she hadn’t broken herself against the earth, coming in as uncontrolled as she did, with a wing only half responsive. She wonders if, had the bone broken through skin, it would have torn muscle and tendon until it ripped- until it snapped clean off- and promptly stops wondering.
The gods are cruel, but not like this: that she’s alive must mean something. What god could have been moved by pity enough to let her survive but not fly? What had the Fates weaved for her? Already she is nothing to her herd, as so many others have been nothing to her, and she doesn’t know what to do with the pressure in her chest or the unanswered questions or the wing useless at her side.
Below them shudders a girl.
Like Swifts above so below: Ianthe had never meant to land here. She was meant to be like a passing cloud, a whisper of wind, the herd above. And yet she stands in an open field of lush grass just now browning with the oncoming winter, her heart in her ears and an ache all through her.
Her right wing drapes to the ground, the bone closest to her body pushing against her skin where it’s been broken a little more than halfway down. She knows what happens to limbs healed wrong – has seen Swifts with once broken legs struggle to land and walk – but she doesn’t know how to fix it (doesn’t think she can fix it). A grounded Swift is a dead one.
And she can’t fly.
A breath that would have been a scream, if only she could muster up the energy for it, punches from her chest, and she stumbles on solid ground. The earth hasn’t been able to lay solid claim on her since she was two months old and leaping off a ledge. To now be here, knowing that she can’t reach the sky plunges a knife under her heart, driving pain through her with every beat.
It’s a wonder she hadn’t broken herself against the earth, coming in as uncontrolled as she did, with a wing only half responsive. She wonders if, had the bone broken through skin, it would have torn muscle and tendon until it ripped- until it snapped clean off- and promptly stops wondering.
The gods are cruel, but not like this: that she’s alive must mean something. What god could have been moved by pity enough to let her survive but not fly? What had the Fates weaved for her? Already she is nothing to her herd, as so many others have been nothing to her, and she doesn’t know what to do with the pressure in her chest or the unanswered questions or the wing useless at her side.
