BUT I BITE AT IT AS AT A MYSTERY
nostalgia for the impending present / and I'll never catch hold of it.
It takes him a moment – his gaze is wary at first, halfway uncertain, and flush with embarrassment when his voice does not act as he wishes. I keep my stare trained on him, softening ever so slightly in my mischief, and, when he figures it out, I can barely contain my excitement, no matter how shy he happens to seem in the moment.
“Yes,” I say, grinning from ear to ear, "“I am – at least in this lifetime.” (I do not pause to think that that remark might be strange to someone who isn’t from the Gold; my speech patterns have barely changed since I arrived in Novus.) "“I’m glad that we were paired together. I was wondering if we’d see each other again.” This island – island continent, I’ve been told – is much bigger than my homeland, and the people that I know seem to be few and far between. It’s hard to imagine that I could meet someone once and not meet them again, but that seems entirely plausible here, especially considering that I haven’t the faintest idea of what happens to souls here after they die. I can only assume that they’re reborn. That is the way of things. I suppose that it is silly to doubt that something so fundamental has changed simply because I’ve traveled to somewhere else in the world.
(I am choosing to ignore all the ways that things that are fundamental at home – the perpetual autumn, the brilliant warmth, the sovereign - are not at all so fundamental here, and I know it.)
I eye my date thoughtfully, from his wrought-golden antlers to his dark hooves. I’m not quite a child, and I don’t much know what to do on a playdate besides; it seems awfully childish, for someone who’s lived so many lives before. I decide to think of it as an opportunity to get to know my new friend – we’ve danced in a storm together, so I think that he qualifies as one – a bit better, and that is when I notice that he appears profoundly uncomfortable, more evident in his posture even than in the cracked way that he said my name. (It almost makes me feel a bit bad for the teasing way I’d introduced myself to him.) I smile my gentlest, warmest smile, hoping that it might ease his mind a bit, and I step a bit closer to his side, reaching out the soft pinions of one wing to touch his side ever so softly. “What do you want to do?”
I know what I want to do, anyways (and I deliberately do not look over my shoulder at the frozen lake, because he seems nervous enough already) – it’s only polite to listen to him, first. It might calm him down if he can get excited about something.
@
"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
