bitch you gotta take it
Don’t, Andras says. And instantly I am grinning: laughing, even, through the grit of my teeth, a bright, burbling thing from the bottom of my chest. Despite the grayness of the sky, the cold that ruffles my long hair and close-packed scales, I am suddenly radiant. Smirking. Flashing bright-white teeth. Blinking molten amber eyes. Scales shining mossy green, then cloudy gold, as the sun passes over.
I am a statue made of copper, covered in patina. Rusting with disuse. Sculpted by someone who sculpted my mother and her mother before her, who breathed life into the ropes of muscle, the finely carved bones, the soft metal smile: no matter how long I am stuck here, how time freezes me and my family as the world turns around me, I will never stop being beautiful.
By the time I close the distance between us, I am almost prancing. I tingle with new energy, tail slashing behind me and chin high, enamored with the thrill of seeing how his face closes up when our eyes meet. Half my mouth turns up into a lazy smirk. “Don’t what?” I purr. The sound of it is so familiar, so just like the last time I asked him a question closer to a dare, that for a moment I am struck with deja vu. My head swims; I falter, I slow. Snow bites at my ankles.
I blink. The feeling is gone. I am calm again, or calm enough, pulse slowing to a purposeful stutter against my ribs. The space between us is negligible now: I am watching Andras intently, with clear, serious, eyes, unabashedly memorizing the way he looks with the calm perfectionism of a scientist—the forking of lighting over his skin, how it turns the white on his chin pale blue, the little laugh that slips out of him, less amused than exasperated.
Color me endeared.
“You don’t look busy to me,” I drawl. Purposefully, I let my gaze drift up and down, side to side, all the way over him. We could be, though, I think.
@
