[P] all i need to be free

[Samaira]

however big, however small
let me be part of it all

S

he lets it go, for now. Buries it somewhere beneath the folds of her thoughts. It might emerge at another time, the lingering feelings of what it is like to be hunted, to run for your life, but she does not want them now. Not here, standing before this man of earth and sky who is like a new version of her past, remade into something more beautiful, something that does not make her heart twist with fear or worry. Something that has made her smile.

“If I am to be stuck anywhere,” she pauses, glancing at his nightfall eyes, “then right here seems the perfect place.” Oh, if her silver eyes don’t watch him with equal parts curiosity and warmth. This, she could do time and time again she thinks. Conversations on the street to the sound of music, with a bright sun above them. This, she thinks, could be all the girl in her had ever wished for, when she walked through the forest and made friends with the woodland creatures.

She watches him speak and steals a glance about them again as he speaks of recovery. With the knowing Samaira can see it better, in the weight of the shoulders of those who pass her, in the weariness of a pair of eyes she catches by chance. Her gaze becomes contemplative, the silver in them softer as her thoughts return momentarily to her bandaged wing, and she understands. The pegasus, not quite thinking it through, not quite knowing whether she should or not, extends her good wing to gently brush the feathers of it across the man’s shoulder. Then, she says, “What better a place, then, for me to recover too,” and if he looks at her she will smile gently, “We will heal together.”

Something in Samaira lightens when he says that he will dance with her then, like she had closed her eyes and made a wish and he has made it come true. “Asterion,” she tastes the name on her tongue, letting it brush over her lips like the sweet soft petals of a flower. It is something special that his is the first name she learns in this beautifully strange new world, and it is difficult for her to disguise her joy as it radiates from her like a beam.

“Nothing could make me happier than if you would join me in a dance,” and she turns, pressing golden edged hooves to the cobblestone to make her way toward the musician. She glances back, her lips curled up at the corners as her sterling gaze waits for him to join her. “I am Samaira,” and her voice is velvet and smooth and she lifts her head to the sun and sways to the music like grass beneath a gentle breeze. “It reminds me of a song my mother used to sing to me when I was a girl,” and she feels, perhaps for the first time since arriving, free.

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@Asterion | "speaks" | notes: <3

rallidae