Softly my thoughts /
whispered invisible words.
☼
Through the fading light of day, a slow clarity had descended upon the viper-woman. The fangs had long been put away, the venom drawn to the depths of her gums, but intuition for danger remained. They were, the two of them, playing a game; she felt the slow diversion of his simple reply sluice down her spine like ice water, the upturn of his amicable smile as genuine as it was false. A day’s duration had been all it’d taken for her to know the integrity of his character, and to believe in it further, still—but she did not yet wholly trust the nature of his goodness.
There was something stifled; something withheld. Another shoe that had yet to drop, but that was wound tightly into place by the tethers of apologies, gratitude, omissions of the heart. The milky white of her eyes bore into him with newfound intensity, and only the slow rake of her tongue over the flats of her teeth could dispel her neediness to ask.
They were both buried in secrets. Untold stories, unspoken feelings—held beneath the weight of words that had not, and perhaps never would, come to fruition.
A mask was what he wore, but it, she thought, was an exact replica of his true face. That was why the stitching blended perfectly, making it nearly impossible to discern the difference. He was a good person—but not, the woman realized, for the reasons she had initially believed.
Her head had set upon a fixed angle as she watched him, her limbs rooted to the earth, and her ears slowly drew to the flat of her skull as she heaved in a languid, considering breath. This time, she did not answer his playfulness with a smile—trapping him, instead, beneath the smoldering scrutiny of white-hot eyes. Hälla did not believe he tripped over his cloak come dusk; she believed he stepped over it neatly, keeping the crimson sweep of it flat over his spine, dancing through its flow as he had a hundred times before.
And she wondered what sort of person he was when the world wasn’t watching. Not manipulative; not a liar—the game he played was not one of harm.
She just hadn’t figured out what his intention was yet.
Realizing she’d been quiet for too long, and yet in no more of a hurry to reply to him than she’d been before, she clucked her tongue lightly.
“Don’t apologize,” she dismissed. She would not be in the plains throughout the duration of night—already, she had the sneaking feeling that the lions and wolves of remembrance would have tracked her from the tombs by now, and that they would hound her until dawn. “Come morning, I’ll join you back here,” where her legs would take her between now and then, she didn’t know. She did know, though, that she would circle back before sunrise to see what became of his guise when eyes were not openly upon him.
She wondered if he had escaped a tomb, too—perhaps just in a different form.
She wasn’t sure why she cared.
“With any luck,” she paused, and a drawling smile, something satirical and knowing, upturned the corner of her lips. “I’ll arrive early enough to see you still tripping through the plains.”
Her tail flicked lightly as she turned back in the direction of the desert, a lash of the leonine tip brushing his knee. “Come morning,” she reaffirmed, before, with a slash of her hoary eyes, offering her farewell. "Sleep well."
There was something stifled; something withheld. Another shoe that had yet to drop, but that was wound tightly into place by the tethers of apologies, gratitude, omissions of the heart. The milky white of her eyes bore into him with newfound intensity, and only the slow rake of her tongue over the flats of her teeth could dispel her neediness to ask.
They were both buried in secrets. Untold stories, unspoken feelings—held beneath the weight of words that had not, and perhaps never would, come to fruition.
A mask was what he wore, but it, she thought, was an exact replica of his true face. That was why the stitching blended perfectly, making it nearly impossible to discern the difference. He was a good person—but not, the woman realized, for the reasons she had initially believed.
Her head had set upon a fixed angle as she watched him, her limbs rooted to the earth, and her ears slowly drew to the flat of her skull as she heaved in a languid, considering breath. This time, she did not answer his playfulness with a smile—trapping him, instead, beneath the smoldering scrutiny of white-hot eyes. Hälla did not believe he tripped over his cloak come dusk; she believed he stepped over it neatly, keeping the crimson sweep of it flat over his spine, dancing through its flow as he had a hundred times before.
And she wondered what sort of person he was when the world wasn’t watching. Not manipulative; not a liar—the game he played was not one of harm.
She just hadn’t figured out what his intention was yet.
Realizing she’d been quiet for too long, and yet in no more of a hurry to reply to him than she’d been before, she clucked her tongue lightly.
“Don’t apologize,” she dismissed. She would not be in the plains throughout the duration of night—already, she had the sneaking feeling that the lions and wolves of remembrance would have tracked her from the tombs by now, and that they would hound her until dawn. “Come morning, I’ll join you back here,” where her legs would take her between now and then, she didn’t know. She did know, though, that she would circle back before sunrise to see what became of his guise when eyes were not openly upon him.
She wondered if he had escaped a tomb, too—perhaps just in a different form.
She wasn’t sure why she cared.
“With any luck,” she paused, and a drawling smile, something satirical and knowing, upturned the corner of her lips. “I’ll arrive early enough to see you still tripping through the plains.”
Her tail flicked lightly as she turned back in the direction of the desert, a lash of the leonine tip brushing his knee. “Come morning,” she reaffirmed, before, with a slash of her hoary eyes, offering her farewell. "Sleep well."
Speech, @"Avallac'h"
