11-06-2019, 08:58 AM
She blinks and it takes a year. Celina asks questions from her belly that hardly seem important.
"Blue."
The answer rumbles out from her smoking mouth. Clouds taste blue, and it seems so obvious that she wonders how Celina could not know it. Of course clouds taste blue. And of course she can reach them, Cave-Poppy's head is brushing the sky, ringed by clouds that are turning pink and orange and gold as the day grows later. She reaches up, slow as a glacier, reaches up and closes her teeth on the nearest cloud, pulls down with the same impossible slowness, down to her belly where Celina is living. It's been years since she swallowed her.
"Blue. And dust." Her voice is muffled by the softness of Celina's young feathers, one wing's worth bunched in between her gray mountain-rock teeth as she tugs the limb slightly forward to show it off.
"See?"
The word comes in a puff of breath, and a cloud of feather dust leaps sparkling into the air as it catches the light that is angling from the cave mouth. Surprised, entranced, she releases the cloud, head tilted strangely, and with a sound like rockfall, she climbs to numb feet, cracking away from the cave system and following the glittering fairy dust.
"Celina, fairies."
Unable to feel her feet, she sheds them, useless things, and leaps for the too-bright glow of life beyond the cave. She does not wait for Celina to catch up because she is already carrying her along within. It is hard to run when you've been a cave for ceturies, hard to run when you've left your feet behind, but she manages it, steps high and jerking rhythmically like a mechanical spider, chasing the Fairies into the afternoon forest.
"They grant wishes if you catch them, Lethy said so."
"Blue."
The answer rumbles out from her smoking mouth. Clouds taste blue, and it seems so obvious that she wonders how Celina could not know it. Of course clouds taste blue. And of course she can reach them, Cave-Poppy's head is brushing the sky, ringed by clouds that are turning pink and orange and gold as the day grows later. She reaches up, slow as a glacier, reaches up and closes her teeth on the nearest cloud, pulls down with the same impossible slowness, down to her belly where Celina is living. It's been years since she swallowed her.
"Blue. And dust." Her voice is muffled by the softness of Celina's young feathers, one wing's worth bunched in between her gray mountain-rock teeth as she tugs the limb slightly forward to show it off.
"See?"
The word comes in a puff of breath, and a cloud of feather dust leaps sparkling into the air as it catches the light that is angling from the cave mouth. Surprised, entranced, she releases the cloud, head tilted strangely, and with a sound like rockfall, she climbs to numb feet, cracking away from the cave system and following the glittering fairy dust.
"Celina, fairies."
Unable to feel her feet, she sheds them, useless things, and leaps for the too-bright glow of life beyond the cave. She does not wait for Celina to catch up because she is already carrying her along within. It is hard to run when you've been a cave for ceturies, hard to run when you've left your feet behind, but she manages it, steps high and jerking rhythmically like a mechanical spider, chasing the Fairies into the afternoon forest.
"They grant wishes if you catch them, Lethy said so."
Popinjay
She was not quite what you would call refined
@[Celina]
