From my breast the cold heart taking,
Give it to Belerma's care

We leave.

I’m not in the position to say otherwise, (of course I’m just a youngling, after all, with only the powers of observation to guide me) but adults and their imaginary boundaries fascinate me. Say I cannot pass, and I myself will do just that. Tell me I cannot do something, and I’ll find a way. The rest worry too much over consequence and the likes. I watch Ivar as he turns angrily away and say nothing while we travel - but all the while my mind is turning gear over gear with intrepid fascination.

Was there something I was missing? A higher stakes in the game of life than death? The movers and shakers of this world all fashion in tandem when it comes to oddities; they hesitate where I least expect them to, barge ahead whereas I would’ve waited a hairsbreadth longer.

These are things I mull over while we walk: “Could I, should I be different? Do I have that pleasure?” I know the answer. Already I am something that never was - a nobody in a world of ‘someones’. I walk among them as their own, but I can never be them. They have stories written long before theirs, and many more will come after - Ivar’s life is just the meat in an otherwise robust sandwich of existence.

I, however, am the origin story.

“Welcome to Loess, Rey.” He says, giving me a little thrill of pleasure. I peer around him, out into the expanse I’d not even known was changing while we walked. A smattering of hills, a herd of arched-back cats with an assortment of flora to brighten the picture. Ivar dives beneath an overhanging and I follow suit, without the need of ducking my head. Together we view gurgling springs. I say nothing as he hands me my long-coveted golden ticket. Nothing aside from, “I will live here, thank you.”

There’s nothing more to be said. That’s not to say that I don’t bump the soft swell of my dark forehead against the flat of his shoulder as I pass by, or that I turn back to him with my soft mouth pressed tight against the threat of a beaming smile. “We’ll see each other soon. You don’t need to worry over me - I can keep myself entertained.” I explain, leaning down the soft incline of our lookout with a few more steps forward.

“That is, unless, you’d like to show me around.” I offer quickly, suspended halfway between coming and going while I wait for the pleasant tilt of his reply. Something in me hopes he’ll say no … I want us to meet again under different circumstances. I want even for there to a be chance that he might forget about me, the little oddity in the den.

I won’t be a child forever, after all.

Rey