Isra pulls the scarf away from Michael's face and he feels the late autumn wind like he has never felt it, cold against his cheekbones, howling through the hollows of his skull. She is sharp when she whispers into his skin, all blades and bent things and jagged rock. Lately Isra is always blades and jagged rock. Michael will break himself on her shore nonetheless.
He looks over his shoulder at her, still pressed against him, still warm in spite of all this deep, deep cold. Michael takes his scrap of paper back gently, probably too gently, and folds it in several neat squares before tucking it into his scarf, where it sits as if cradled, lovingly.
She is going. It sounds like somewhere far away.
Would you like to come with me?
Whatever hole she had dug in Michael opens wide with gnashing teeth and slobbering jaws. He wants to say, of course. He wants to say, I would follow you anywhere, do anything if you asked me. Michael would pull the blue of the sky down, fist by fist. He would uproot every ancient tree in Delumine, swallow every grain of Solterra's sand, if only she asked it of him. He wants to say, yes, as many times as my old lungs can say yes and as loud as I can say it, if I could only have a moment in your sun.
But, here on the mountain, with the cold wind and the punctuation of falling rocks, Michael is sloughing pain at an alarming rate, and his churchbells, his ocean roar, sound like funeral music.
"Are you sure?" he asks. His voice does not shake. The wind howls along.
He would go, he would go, he would go, but-- "Should I?"
He looks over his shoulder at her, still pressed against him, still warm in spite of all this deep, deep cold. Michael takes his scrap of paper back gently, probably too gently, and folds it in several neat squares before tucking it into his scarf, where it sits as if cradled, lovingly.
She is going. It sounds like somewhere far away.
Would you like to come with me?
Whatever hole she had dug in Michael opens wide with gnashing teeth and slobbering jaws. He wants to say, of course. He wants to say, I would follow you anywhere, do anything if you asked me. Michael would pull the blue of the sky down, fist by fist. He would uproot every ancient tree in Delumine, swallow every grain of Solterra's sand, if only she asked it of him. He wants to say, yes, as many times as my old lungs can say yes and as loud as I can say it, if I could only have a moment in your sun.
But, here on the mountain, with the cold wind and the punctuation of falling rocks, Michael is sloughing pain at an alarming rate, and his churchbells, his ocean roar, sound like funeral music.
"Are you sure?" he asks. His voice does not shake. The wind howls along.
He would go, he would go, he would go, but-- "Should I?"
"Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us."
@isra <3
