YOU WATCH YOURSELF.
you watch the watcher too - / a ghostly figure on the garden wall. / and one of you is her, and one is you, / if either one of you exists at all.☙❧
Elliana is the first child that I’ve seen grow up from infancy.
In my first life, I spent plenty of time around children, but that was mostly to train them by the blade; they were never too young, because they had to be able to handle the strain of our training before they were enrolled. My only sister was older, and I never had any children of my own. Sometimes, I think that I would have liked to, but I had higher concerns than my personal life – I never married, or had any lovers for too long, and I never settled down. In my second – equine – life, I had a younger sister, but I was away when she was born, and we weren’t raised together. In all the lives in-between, everything was different, and none of it mattered in the same way. I still don’t recall having any children. Not in the way that I would now, or could have in the past, at the very least.
She is the first child that I’ve seen grow up from infancy – and I watch, a smile situating itself across my lips as she bounds across the fields towards me, a bit of honey-sweetness and pale gold against all of that death. Her lemur jumps from her shoulders, presumably because she is frolicking, and follows her on the ground, and she springs towards me, all eager-anticipation and brightness. Even when she reaches me, I don’t immediately show her the sword. I let her marinate for a while in her own anticipation, holding the secret just out of her grasp until she seems as though she is just about ready to burst from the force of it.
“Something like that,” I say, smothering something that is less of a smile and more of a grin, but I don’t actually show her what I’ve brought until she gives that soft, pleading, Nic. I pull the sword out from where it’s nestled beneath the soft feathers of my wing, and I hold it suspended in front of her. I’ve had years of practice at picking them, so I made sure that it was a good one before I got it for her – carved out of steady, bright oak, edges too blunt to hurt herself, still lightweight enough to be swung around by a young girl. “Here,” I say, extending the sword to her, “take a look.”
“It’s a training sword – never too early to start learning to defend yourself…” I trail off, as something abruptly occurs to me. “…that is, as long as you want to learn?” I didn’t actually ask her, and Elliana is just as gentle-natured as her sun-kissed mother; she might be disinclined towards violence, although I know she’s grown up on stories of noble knights and captive princesses. If she doesn’t like it, I suppose I’ll just have to make sure that I don’t look too disappointed about it and sneak some other kinds of self-defense training into her day-to-day life – disguise them as a game, maybe. In my experience with wayward apprentice knights, that almost always works charms.
@Elliana || <3 <3 <3 || wendy cope, "by the round pond"
Speech
you watch the watcher too - / a ghostly figure on the garden wall. / and one of you is her, and one is you, / if either one of you exists at all.☙❧
Elliana is the first child that I’ve seen grow up from infancy.
In my first life, I spent plenty of time around children, but that was mostly to train them by the blade; they were never too young, because they had to be able to handle the strain of our training before they were enrolled. My only sister was older, and I never had any children of my own. Sometimes, I think that I would have liked to, but I had higher concerns than my personal life – I never married, or had any lovers for too long, and I never settled down. In my second – equine – life, I had a younger sister, but I was away when she was born, and we weren’t raised together. In all the lives in-between, everything was different, and none of it mattered in the same way. I still don’t recall having any children. Not in the way that I would now, or could have in the past, at the very least.
She is the first child that I’ve seen grow up from infancy – and I watch, a smile situating itself across my lips as she bounds across the fields towards me, a bit of honey-sweetness and pale gold against all of that death. Her lemur jumps from her shoulders, presumably because she is frolicking, and follows her on the ground, and she springs towards me, all eager-anticipation and brightness. Even when she reaches me, I don’t immediately show her the sword. I let her marinate for a while in her own anticipation, holding the secret just out of her grasp until she seems as though she is just about ready to burst from the force of it.
“Something like that,” I say, smothering something that is less of a smile and more of a grin, but I don’t actually show her what I’ve brought until she gives that soft, pleading, Nic. I pull the sword out from where it’s nestled beneath the soft feathers of my wing, and I hold it suspended in front of her. I’ve had years of practice at picking them, so I made sure that it was a good one before I got it for her – carved out of steady, bright oak, edges too blunt to hurt herself, still lightweight enough to be swung around by a young girl. “Here,” I say, extending the sword to her, “take a look.”
“It’s a training sword – never too early to start learning to defend yourself…” I trail off, as something abruptly occurs to me. “…that is, as long as you want to learn?” I didn’t actually ask her, and Elliana is just as gentle-natured as her sun-kissed mother; she might be disinclined towards violence, although I know she’s grown up on stories of noble knights and captive princesses. If she doesn’t like it, I suppose I’ll just have to make sure that I don’t look too disappointed about it and sneak some other kinds of self-defense training into her day-to-day life – disguise them as a game, maybe. In my experience with wayward apprentice knights, that almost always works charms.
@
Speech
EVERYTHING IS RISK, SHE WHISPERED.if you doubt, it becomes sand trickling through skeletal fingers.☙❧please tag Nic! contact is encouraged, short of violence
