[open] oh, this my weapon, this my loam; any

[irisa]

and the walls kept tumbling down
in this city that we love

She finds herself smiling, and warm beneath his gaze in a way that is unfamiliar. None of her connections have lasted, she’s been a ship passing them in the night. Yet he’s still here, still speaking to her, still looking at her with his grey eyes and shifting wings, and she does not want it to stop, she does not want to be on her way again.
“Me too,” she says, and she feels the gladness distinctly. She’s wondered, sometimes, if she made a mistake in striking out for her independence, in choosing to grow (mother would have kept her as a foal forever in the dream, she suspects). She’s done so little on her own. But in this moment she feels wholly justified in her choice.

Perhaps you will have your own world, he says, but she feels a moment of sourness at the thought. She lacks her mother’s ability – she knows this, and does not lament it – and even if she had such power, she isn’t sure that she would use it.
(But then, if she had such power, could she resist the temptation? Surely not. She is not so strong as that.)
“I like this world, and have no desire to create my own,” she says, “I’m happy here.”
Here. It could mean so many things. She isn’t sure.
She steps closer. She is more cautious, this thing, none of the easy brashness from when she had first touched his wings. Her mind tumbles over itself, trying to find something to say and coming up blank.
Here.
“You’re very handsome,” she says, and she knows it’s wrong before she says it, because he’s young and he’s practically a stranger and she’s touched him once, just her wing to his, and he’s young, and she is a ship, passing in the night.
Maybe she has overstayed.
“I’m sorry,” she says. Now the words stumble from her tongue. “I shouldn’t say things like that.”

Irisa

tarnished x heartworm