TUCSON
because regret drives you as crazy
as the taste of swallowed words
as the taste of swallowed words
D
arlin', tell me you’re gettin’ cold feet?” Tucson’s smile is wry. He cannot help it, despite her shivering, and the way the chill sinks into him, too. He goes on to say: "Well, Darlin’, you did run inta’me, so ain’t no sense in playin’ games a’ “what if”, ain’t no sense in it at all.”.The cowboy’s second comment brings to mind, abruptly, his mother—scolding him for his lackadaisical aura toward just about everything. You were lost in the woods for two days, Tuc, you can’t just laugh and joke about that! But he had. And he always would. Tucson just doesn’t see the point in torturing himself with the what ifs, what if it had gone wrong? Well, he’d be dead, and the what if still wouldn’t matter. “My ma used to say I don’t take things seriously enough.”
In a bizarre way, she almost reminds him of his mother. That may have been the reason he offers such a personal, unnecessary comment. Either way, he does not dwell on it for long, allowing his mind to draw the easy conclusions. Perhaps it is her pale colour, or her gentle politeness. More than that: it might be the way she takes the flask, or shrieks at his fall.
What is very unlike his mother, is the way she laughs at his antics as he lands beside her. Tucson laughs then, too, loud and boisterously. Were you afraid? He can still feel the rush of wind against his skin. He can still feel the earth dropping out from beneath him, the openness of his wings. And he laughs again. “Nah, just alive.”
What he doesn’t say: it takes practice. Tucson refuses to acknowledge fear, for many things. And fear of death, or falling? It was not among his list of things to be wary of. No. His fears were far more intimate. Instead his fears resound when he returns to empty rooms, in the dark, and hears his own thoughts turn about themselves like rabid wolves: it’s your fault, your fault, your fault—
He is afraid of his own silence.
Tucson slows for her; casts a glance over his shoulder for her. It begins to snow again, wet, heavy flurries. But they are slow, and unthreatening. This fact doesn’t prevent Tucson from extending one of his large wings above her, so as to keep the wind and wet at bay. It isn’t that he is immune to the coldness—perhaps just more accustomed. How many winter nights had he trudged through a blizzard alongside Shane, just hoping they could find shelter in time? This, in comparison, seems relatively mild. “Pleasure to meet’ya, Miss Messalina. If I'ad a hat, I’d tip it’t’ya. Sorry ‘bout y’gettin’ caught in th’storm, but I ain’t sorry it’s let us meet.” He might have thrown a wink in, if he were just a little younger, or a little more familiar with the foreign land.
Already, he can see the light of the soldier’s output reflecting off the falling snow and low-hanging clouds. The firelight seems warm, inviting, in comparison to the winter chill. He asks, unable to curb his curiosity, “An' what brings y’ta all’th'way Terrastella in wintertime?” By now, they are close enough to the output Tucson discerns a pathway through the snow. He leads her to it, following the path of what must have been one of the poor sentries looping along the outside of the output, and then through, during their routine route. “More whiskey?”
@Messalina | "speaks" | notes: this took soooo long i'm sorry!
