and i must pour forth
a river of words
a river of words
M
aret can’t help it, the sudden pride that rises inside of her at the boy’s words. It makes her frown.Maybe if he knew how she had laid in bed for weeks, unable to lift her head for a drink of water, maybe he wouldn’t laugh the way he did. Maybe if he had a heart like her’s that stuttered every time it dared to make a wish, he might have understood. She almost tells him, almost lifts her head in the same haughty manner as he and asks him what do you know of my parents? of my life? — but she doesn’t.
She just drops her head until her forelock covers her eyes, and goes back to staring out the window. Frost glitters along her eyelashes like tears.
And she resolves to ignore the boy with the green scales sparkling beneath his eyes and water dripping from his mane onto the floor below — but her resolve is gone in an instant when the otter creeps towards her. Maret turns her head back away from the window and watches curiously as he comes forward, pricking both ears forward at the strange chattering he makes.
She doesn’t want to like him — it’s easier to feel sorry for herself, it’s easier to resent him for having a life of freedom — but oh, she can’t help herself. She never had been a very resolute girl, her emotions were far too fickle for that, always changing, like a cloud passing over the sun, over and done with in an instant. Her smile spreads like the glow of dawn brightening the horizon.
"I’ve never minded the cold," she says still with a shrug. What she does not say, is it’s all I’ve ever really known. But the ice crystals that hovered around her feet were beginning to melt now; the bits of frost limning the window fading away like nothing more than wisps of fog.
She eyes him as he edges towards the door, her brow creasing at the wink he tosses so casually her way (if only to hide the way it makes her heart skip a beat, she still doesn’t want to like him, after all.) But oh, oh, that one daring step he takes turns into one of her own, nose pressed forward eagerly like a wolf pup taking her first step free of her mother’s den.
"Are you sure?"
Her voice is as tremulous as her heart.
But perhaps there’s a rebellious streak inside the girl, after all, as she presses against the boy’s side and starts towards the doorway. "Only for a few minutes," she tells him —
But somehow, she already knows it is a lie. And while it may be the first time the girl has ever told a lie, it certainly will not be the last.
{ @pan "speaks" notes: }
