[P] all i need to be free

[Samaira]

however big, however small
let me be part of it all

H

e grins sheepishly and Samaira has to pause for a moment when she looks at him, catching on the dark bay of his skin and the black swath of his hair. Oh, how like Cassius he looks at first glance that her heart skips a beat and flutters and drops all at once. But this man’s eyes are night skies and his skin is tinged with twilight and she knows that Cassius is not here, and she is glad for it. “That doesn’t bode very well for me, does it?” she responds in kind with her own smile curving her earthen lips. “Your home is so… alive, so full of wonder.”

They look at each other and her silver eyes are at complete contrast with his own and they are standing in the crowd with the sun on their backs but it feels like a strange new world. When was the last time she had properly met someone new? Samaira didn’t exactly count the harsh, steely woman Marisol in that category, as she’d come crashing through the trees very unproperly, but it had been a relief to know that here, she would not be chased.

His brow raises when he looks at her wing, bandaged carefully against her side. There is something almost mournful in her eyes then, as she stretches her good wing, letting her feathers flutter in the gentle breeze. “A tendon injury, I’ve been told. The kindly healer in the swamp said it would be better in a few months,” and she smiles, but it is almost a frown disguising itself as a smile. To think that she had finally found herself in a world where her wings did not make her a criminal, and she could not use them for several months. But, she thought, she would be able to use them again, and freely without fear.

When her face turns once more toward her companion she looks at him and all she sees is hope. Things can be different here; she hopes they will be different here, desperately, wildly, longingly. It is in every smile she wears, in every curious glance, in every tug of her hair on the breeze. She looks again in his eyes and can only imagine what he is wondering, the questions he must have.

The reminder of Cassius’ horrible smile when he’d turned her in and told her to run threatens to drown her some moments, filling her veins with an icy chill. If there is nothing to fear here, why does she still feel a prickling along her spine? Her chest tightens and then expands into something empty and gaping and wide, and she realizes that it is because she is missing the feeling of trust that she used to so readily wear. The words are there, on the tip of her tongue, and they dry up and crumble and fall like brittle petals, whispering away into the wind.

There is a rising trill of music then, and her gaze slides away from the man in front of her, glancing to the musician who appears to be reaching the climax of their performance. Samaira takes a moment to breathe, to fill the space in her with anything, even air, and closes her eyes. And she listens for a heartbeat, two, three, and the lines of her face smooth as she does. The music reminds her of her mother, who used to play and hum to her when she was but a filly, filling their little forest glade with song.

When her eyes open again they seem clearer, brighter, and she dips her head slightly. Her dark hair swings forward, dragging upon the ground at her feet. She hms for a moment, as if reminiscing, “It is lovely,” Samaira says and she guards her heart when she looks back up, “I could not imagine listening to such music every time I walked the streets. It is a wonder nobody dances.” And if there is a something wistful in her words it is silken and soft, and but a murmur.

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@Asterion | "speaks" | notes: <3

rallidae