and i must pour forth
a river of words
a river of words
P
erhaps one day she will look back on this moment and wonder at how long it took her to say yes. Or maybe she will remember only his sea-green eyes, and the way they laughed and teased and dared her to dream about worlds that were different than her own. Her shod hooves echo painfully loudly on the marble tiles, and with each step she wonders how long it will be before someone comes to chastise her. Or, worse — that they would let her go on, and only later would she find out that they had told her fathers.
But each step makes her braver, bolder, head lifting higher. And when the door swings open with a creak, and the boy turns back to her with a smile that is as mischievous as it is kind, she does not hesitate.
And oh, how wonderful that first step is.
The summer rain hangs like a veil around her shoulders, misting her hair and hanging like teardrops from her eyelashes, light as wishes and as bright as the stars on which they travel. She follows him awestruck through the gardens, looking at a world that seems not her own (it’s so different now, in the rain rather than the sunshine.)
She would walk in it forever, if the rain lasted so long. But Pan’s laughter fills the air like breaking glass, and when Maret turns she sees him racing away, past garden flowers and verdant hedges, over sodden ground as dirt paths turn to untamed grass. There is a moment where she balks, and looks over one shoulder back at the castle. A slip of movement catches her eye in the window she had previously sat in on the other side — but when she turns, it is empty.
She imagines it was a ghost, her ghost, watching her.
So Maret smiles. And she tosses her head back so the rain could fall upon her face, only a moment before racing after the scaled boy.
{ @pan "speaks" notes: not at all! thank you for a lovely thread, I’d love them to meet again sometime. <3 }
