[private] the storm that’s surely coming along; altar

[altar]

get up off your knees, boy
Stand face to face with your god

It shifts something in her chest.
The heart beats sideways. Once, twice, thrice.
And then it settles back to center as she studies him.

It sways her even deeper into that terrible softness to watch him shuffle. To hear his answer. His true answer. There is a flash of that softness in her reptilian eye before it is gone. Just as quickly as it had appeared.

She draws in a long breath and shifts her gaze back to the horizon. There had been no glimmer of curiosity in his tone, thus she feels no particular sense of delight to hear it. No, she takes no pleasure in the answer when all it inspires in her is a depthless dark.

The silence stretches elastic between them until, finally, she nods. If that is what he wants, that is what she will give him. She has never attempted to travel that far and the preparation will likely take weeks. But she will take him there.

“Okay,” she murmurs. “I will take you there.”

It is a promise even if she does not explicitly say the words.

ALTAR