10-20-2016, 03:26 PM
“Where have you been?”
Her voice had shook, and he shivered with it. It had cracked in the middle of her sentence, and that interrupt contained a measure of relief and a note of tenderness – grace, as she had moved to him and buried her nose in the center of his forehead, and held. Breathing in, slowly, the scent that was no more his than it was theirs.
“Never do that again, Giver. Never leave me like that.”
His brows furrowed, and he wondered afterwards if she had felt the skin bunch up beneath her lips. Known that those words had rattled him and understood it to be guilt that worried his mind. He could never be sure what she did and did not know.
When they were young, he imagined it to be some kind of arcane and age-old power they both had, a twin-thing. As he grew up, he had untangled himself from that white lie, but she had not. Still, he could not deny that she knew him better than anyone else, and perhaps he, her.
Entire conversations between them could be played out in shivers and furrowed brows.
He leaves her as he always does, just before nightfall, when she falls asleep and he can remove himself from her skin without stirring her. Carefully, so quietly, until he feels something like freedom. Then he follows it, through the heady and gaseous new land, almost begrudging the absence of pine trees, down to the westernmost beaches. Slowly, Giver submerges himself in the cold divide of water that separates Tephra from the mainland – first to his knees, then slides in completely.
It is like black glass, alive with the reflection of stars.
A galaxy, liquefied and poured into the earth’s cracks.
The Meadow is where he always ends up. This, at least, has not changed. It is where he had run to, furious and frenzied, to find her (the wrong her, half his mind had screamed, as his knees were whipped to a pulp and still he ran on.) And where he had, with great relief, found her unharmed. (She lives in Tephra, too. He tries to keep them separate by a great divide, like deepest, darkest space brought to earth.) But the respite does not come as intended. His mind is black with thoughts, muddied and swirling. It might almost be a comfort if the headache could blot out the mighty weight of his starlessness.
It does not.
It is compounded by the loneliness he feels, as above they twinkle on, the coldest they have ever felt.
Her voice had shook, and he shivered with it. It had cracked in the middle of her sentence, and that interrupt contained a measure of relief and a note of tenderness – grace, as she had moved to him and buried her nose in the center of his forehead, and held. Breathing in, slowly, the scent that was no more his than it was theirs.
“Never do that again, Giver. Never leave me like that.”
His brows furrowed, and he wondered afterwards if she had felt the skin bunch up beneath her lips. Known that those words had rattled him and understood it to be guilt that worried his mind. He could never be sure what she did and did not know.
When they were young, he imagined it to be some kind of arcane and age-old power they both had, a twin-thing. As he grew up, he had untangled himself from that white lie, but she had not. Still, he could not deny that she knew him better than anyone else, and perhaps he, her.
Entire conversations between them could be played out in shivers and furrowed brows.
He leaves her as he always does, just before nightfall, when she falls asleep and he can remove himself from her skin without stirring her. Carefully, so quietly, until he feels something like freedom. Then he follows it, through the heady and gaseous new land, almost begrudging the absence of pine trees, down to the westernmost beaches. Slowly, Giver submerges himself in the cold divide of water that separates Tephra from the mainland – first to his knees, then slides in completely.
It is like black glass, alive with the reflection of stars.
A galaxy, liquefied and poured into the earth’s cracks.
The Meadow is where he always ends up. This, at least, has not changed. It is where he had run to, furious and frenzied, to find her (the wrong her, half his mind had screamed, as his knees were whipped to a pulp and still he ran on.) And where he had, with great relief, found her unharmed. (She lives in Tephra, too. He tries to keep them separate by a great divide, like deepest, darkest space brought to earth.) But the respite does not come as intended. His mind is black with thoughts, muddied and swirling. It might almost be a comfort if the headache could blot out the mighty weight of his starlessness.
It does not.
It is compounded by the loneliness he feels, as above they twinkle on, the coldest they have ever felt.
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