haze like a fever

i fell like a dreamer for sweet tea and lemonade; it clings to my t-shirt it’s loud and it lingers, designed to suffocate. i light up to find what i’ve known all this time, there’s some beauty here yet

Wishbone wakes to a late morning. She’d spent the night nestled against the comforting embrace of her mother after speaking with Warrick into the darkness of the night. Wound had held her daughter close, just to make sure the girl was home at least for a bit, and Wishbone hadn’t squirmed or complained or wriggled at all (not like when she’d lived in Tephra, sneaking away from her mother in the midst of the night to watch the otters sleep or chase the molten lava along their paths).

The journey from Nerine to Tephra had been tiring, especially with the tension hanging over Beqanna like thick, dark storm-clouds. So when she wakes with the sun nearly to the highest point in the sky, she isn’t surprised. But she feels well-rested and eager to search for her new little sister, one she has yet to meet. Warrick had mentioned the arrival of her new sibling during their conversation, but by the time Wishbone had settled down to sleep it had been well into the nighttime.

So she leaves her mother, perhaps for a long while, with a tender kiss to her cheek and a loving embrace. It’s relieving to walk through Tephra’s forests again. Although Wishbone’s reckless heart adores the thrill of adventure and discovery and new places, she cannot help but feel comfort upon walking along the trails of her birth-home. Her mind’s eye takes her back to her favorite places as a child to search for her sister, and though she searches the hot springs and the foothills of the volcano, she doesn’t find her.

Beginning to feel forlorn, Wishbone turns toward the slender piece of beach containing the protected bay where the large rocks rise up on either side, creating a cocoon of sheltered waves for the family of sea otters that live there. Small pebbles crunch under her feet as she comes to a halt on the shore, a soft smile dancing across her mouth at the memory of standing on this same beach, shoulder-to-shoulder, with Trekori.

haze like a fever

i fell like a dreamer for sweet tea and lemonade; it clings to my t-shirt it’s loud and it lingers, designed to suffocate. i light up to find what i’ve known all this time, there’s some beauty here yet

Wishbone can remember fondly the days of her childhood, spent exploring Tephra’s hidden corners until she felt as if every inch of the island was thoroughly discovered. For a few sweet moments, the sulfur kingdom had been the only known world — there was no Nerine or Hyaline to occupy her thoughts — but those times changed just as quickly as her little body grew. Her youth is still fresh enough for Wishbone to recall these times faintly yet fondly, as she stands upon the dark shoreline.

The sound of a high, young call rides on the crest of the beach-side breeze and Wishbone turns her slender head in the direction of the sound. Her newest sister (who she can assume, by the navy overo of her body and the newness of her limbs and the careening cry that drips from her tiny mouth) is racing down the shoreline, just as bewilderingly reckless as she had been — and continues to be.

“You must be Sibyl.” There’s a laugh in her honey-whiskey voice, one that chimes with the chuckling of the waves nearby. Before she can say any more, Wishbone’s sister is daring her onward and racing away with a flash of newborn limbs and dark, seafoam-dipped sand. The stretch of the run feels good on her muscles and though the mahogany girl knows she could easily take over Sibyl, she moves to race just behind the younger’s right hip.

The prize that halts the pair is equal levels of fascinating and frightening. An equine skull, perhaps dragged from the west side of Beqanna by the currents of the wide ocean, stands as a pearly contrast to the ashen shoreline. Wishbone laughs again, reckless and amused, at the sight and her sister’s excitement with the plaything. “You should name him,” she says. “He looks like a Benji to me.” She chuckles again, touching the smooth curve of the skull with her sable nose.

Sibyl requests a wish and, though it could only be a child’s banter, Wishbone closes her eyes with the skull pressing against her skin. It’s warm in the noontime sun, perhaps even worthy of stinging her skin in a few more hours. She isn’t quite sure what she would wish for (a funny thing, the girl with the name Wishbone unable to make a wish) but she eventually decides that she hopes Sibyl’s life will be as full of adventure as her own has been.

With that decided, she opens her eyes again to reveal amber eyes set against her mahogany face. Wishbone pulls her neck upward, slinging her face close enough to aim a light, teasing nip at Sibyl’s fuzzy crest. “Have you been swimming yet, little sister?”