oh, these wings, they flicker and my feathers stir
'til I'm an ancient soul in a cascade world
He hadn’t expected to be caught so quickly—to have someone find him. His surprise is captured in her own eyes and that settles the stirring of his heart, causing the quick thrumming to settle into something gentle and easy. Something like courage strikes him, a protectiveness that he does not often feel when he realizes how fragile she is. “Oh,” the word escapes him on an exhale as she closes the distance between them, as he continues to study the way that the light reflects off of every curve of her.
There’s something that cracks within him at the fragility—at the way she could so easily shatter. It makes his tongue thick and the words fail, even as he feels the need to shield her from the rest of the world. From himself, even. Finally though, the words do come. He realizes the fireflies, finally able to focus on something other than just her, and he smiles—delighted by the way that they dance around them.
“I never thought about that,” he manages, having always thought of his glow more like the stars than the smaller creatures of earth. He wonders if he more earthly than celestial, and finds he doesn’t mind the answer. “They remind me of—“ his voice is cut off as the sky darkens further and the stars begin to dapple in the sky above them. It’s then that he feels her presence and his grin deepens.
She arches down from the sky above, a glowing bar of light, and spins in a delighted loop under his belly before bobbing in front of him. “Speaking of which,” his voice is lighter, the weight of his own social anxieties lifted in the star’s presence. “This is Astrum.” Almost reluctantly, the star turns around, seemingly to face the girl of glass and bobs again—a greeting as best as it is able.
Relaxing in his familiar’s presence, Aureus focuses again on the girl and feels that pang in his heart as the realization of her fragility strikes him again. “And I’m Aureus.”
Who are you, he wants to ask, but the words fade once more.
and I'm quick with the bullet when it comes undone
I got a head like a turret with a mouth for a gun