rage is not beautiful.
it is the ugly head of a rabid animal
foaming at the mouth,
worms in its heart.
it is the ugly head of a rabid animal
foaming at the mouth,
worms in its heart.
The girl turns to face him; Andras watches the crow sway as she does, creased in some places that crows--or, truly, most things--should not crease. It is a rice-filled accordion wobbling dangerously on Corrdelia's back. Andras looks in its blank, black eyes and sees nothing. Andras looks at the still-gleaming curl of its beak and feels his stomach turn.
More time passes than it should. Each second is another heartbeat faster. Each three seconds is another alarm that sounds in his core but does not crawl far enough up the back of his neck to get to the skull.
What are you talking about? Corrdelia asks, and Andras scoffs in the back of his throat - the sort of sound that frightened men make when the words have abandoned them. "Thank you." he breathes, almost too quiet to hear. The girl holds out his book. The polished leather of its cover laughs like sunlight when his eyes drop to it. He can see the book and her chest and his wings unfolding to tuck it back under but out of the corner of his eye there is still the crow, bent like a broken pipe, leering at him with cold, blank, black eyes.
He takes the book. It is not easy. He tries to smile but his mouth won't lift from the firm, grim line that it's set in. Suddenly all the thunder in him feels like a spring shower. Suddenly he feels more like a flash bulb than a cherry bomb.
Corr is talking, blushing, fidgeting and Andras is trying his hardest not to look at Hāsta until she turns back to the bird and says something he doesn't quite here--because the alarms in him are ringing louder and louder and he can no longer hear himself think, let alone someone else.
She apologizes again. Andras breathes in. Andras breathes out. He does it once more for good measure.
After, he says: "I... don't run the library. That's someone else's problem. Thankfully." The warden is silent for a long moment--long enough to take off his glasses, rub them on the black hill of his shoulder, and replace them. His heart feels like a livewire. His legs feel like sharp ice.
"How's--" and here he stammers, the thought catching, as though it should not be thought or said or considered-- "How's your bird?"andras
More time passes than it should. Each second is another heartbeat faster. Each three seconds is another alarm that sounds in his core but does not crawl far enough up the back of his neck to get to the skull.
What are you talking about? Corrdelia asks, and Andras scoffs in the back of his throat - the sort of sound that frightened men make when the words have abandoned them. "Thank you." he breathes, almost too quiet to hear. The girl holds out his book. The polished leather of its cover laughs like sunlight when his eyes drop to it. He can see the book and her chest and his wings unfolding to tuck it back under but out of the corner of his eye there is still the crow, bent like a broken pipe, leering at him with cold, blank, black eyes.
He takes the book. It is not easy. He tries to smile but his mouth won't lift from the firm, grim line that it's set in. Suddenly all the thunder in him feels like a spring shower. Suddenly he feels more like a flash bulb than a cherry bomb.
Corr is talking, blushing, fidgeting and Andras is trying his hardest not to look at Hāsta until she turns back to the bird and says something he doesn't quite here--because the alarms in him are ringing louder and louder and he can no longer hear himself think, let alone someone else.
She apologizes again. Andras breathes in. Andras breathes out. He does it once more for good measure.
After, he says: "I... don't run the library. That's someone else's problem. Thankfully." The warden is silent for a long moment--long enough to take off his glasses, rub them on the black hill of his shoulder, and replace them. His heart feels like a livewire. His legs feel like sharp ice.
"How's--" and here he stammers, the thought catching, as though it should not be thought or said or considered-- "How's your bird?"
@corrdelia
they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
