09-11-2016, 08:26 PM
He never realized the worth of solidity until it befell him.
Perhaps because it was a fool’s dream, to imagine it (though this never stopped him, but it was always in the dark and cobwebbed recesses of his mind, the places he always pretends were nonexistent) – because what they were was a fact. An endpoint. To imagine otherwise would only cause more pain – the same way he could not unmake the blood ties that both bound and damned them, he could not undo their very nature, the fact that they were born as fragile things, glass-boned and paper-skinned. They have always been born – damned – to have their veins and arteries read by anyone, bones in stark relief under their skin.
Break me, their bodies have always said, break me.
(And when the offer was taken up on, when the wolf feasted, when she screamed pointlessly to the sky, when he died and then didn’t – well, it was only inevitable.)
But the world changed, shaking in a violent throe as the magic was funneled back into whence it came – and with it went his glass, his horrid birthright, and he had never been so happy to see a thing go. For what replaced the translucent skin was a pelt, a red roan like strawberries and cream. What replaced those papery, useless wings were things strong and richly feathered, things that could bear a man aloft, if he so wished it.
(He hasn’t flown yet – fear still wraps its fingers against his throat when he beats his wings too hard; he recalls the snap of bones, the shock of pain.)
He holds the hope – of course he does, the fool – that whatever magic (or lack thereof) that’s changed him will change her, too. That their bodies can collide without fear of breaking.
But he’s scared. God, he’s so scared.
He’s always scared, when she’s not in his sights, because he knows how fragile she – they – are.
(Were?)
He calls her name, though, doesn’t care who hears it. Because he has to know. If whatever spell has worked on her, too.
He calls her name, shouts it, screams it like a madman: Adaline.
Such a beautiful name.
contagion
be careful making wishes in the dark