[P] silence the birds and darken the air

[Samaira]

touch me, it's so easy
to leave me all alone
with the memory of
my days in the sun

It’s early. Any patients staying at the hospital are still fast asleep in their beds, and the other doctors and medics are tucked away inside, away from the murky dawn light filtering through the canopy of trees above. The air is filled with mistiness, the memory of rain, and it clings to her feathers and the swath of dark lashes framing her moon silver eyes.

Samaira stands on one of the balconies overlooking the swamp. It is still dark, beneath the trees—wan, veiled almost. There is too much silence, too much empty space to allow for thought and loneliness to come peeking through.

How well they fill the emptiness.

She blinks them away, turns away from the railing and back toward the hospital’s familiar halls. It is brighter inside, no corner left for the shadows to hide. The dampness sloughs away from her feathers as they might a swan’s, though it clings stubbornly to her skin. She smells like earth and rain, like peat and flowers. It clings to her lashes like stars.

Alaunus is there for her, waiting for her. He is always there for her, with too much knowing in his eyes and willingness in his heart. Samaira offers her bonded a smile, as her steps echo longingly down the barren hallway. “Perhaps it will be an easy day,” he suggests, “the hospital is quiet, aside from a few patients.”

“Perhaps,” the pegasus responds, somewhat distantly, as though she is not quite there. She preferred the busier days of winter, when there was always something for her to do. Always something to keep her distracted.

She doesn’t see him, at first. Doesn’t see the splash of his pale skin against the hospital’s dark floors, but when her eyes fall upon him, stepping into the waiting area her heart skips a beat. Her wretched, wretched heart, still betraying her. And yet, it is difficult for Samaira to forget their dance upon the lake the last they had seen each other.

Her legs stop moving, though her lips part. “Elchanan,” he is pristine in the light, his wings the softest shade of blue, his eyes still so deep and burnished. She cannot help her heart, cannot help its foolishness.

It was as she told Asterion, that her heart is always wanting for the things it cannot have.

As nothing has, there is no way this will end any differently.

“What are you doing here?” But then why, why, can she not stop it from hoping, and aching, and wanting? She blinks, one, twice, thrice, and then manages to get her legs moving again. “Are you injured?” If only it would be so simple, Samaira thinks. An injury is something she can handle.

"Speaking."

⚕ | @Elchanan <3