Stand face to face with your god
Anyone else might have missed the pause -- ever so brief, hardly there at all -- but she does not. She knows him better even than she knows herself, she thinks.
But there is no sharp spark of irritation. She does not gnash her teeth at his hesitation or punish him for the way his breath shudders out of him.
No, instead there is a patient smile. It lacks in warmth, certainly, but it is genuine all the same. She turns to face the sun then, lets the heat sink into her skin as she sinks her shoulder against his, a nebulous wing trapped in the space between them. And she marvels at the differences in them, her soot such a stark contrast to his deep black and Sepulcher’s, too.
“Where would you have me take you?” she asks, studying the sun-drenched horizon as she speaks. Perhaps it’s a test, perhaps there is both a right and wrong answer. But there is no indication in her expression, her smile having faded only to be replaced by something cool and passive.
She is tired still from her journey, though the exhaustion exists only in her mind. There is no reason for the body to be tired if it never left this corner of Pangea.
Only a moment passes, though, before she turns her sharp gaze from the horizon to her brother’s face.
