05-03-2021, 07:03 PM
The branches clatter like bones overhead, casting their lacy shadows on our backs as we go. The path underfoot is an old one, here long before me, and I'm certain it will be here long after I've moved on. It survived the neglect of the dark. Only slightly overgrown, it still marked a broad swath through the trees, the safest way to travel in my woods.
For all its dark history, it is the safest place I've ever known. The closest thing to home I've made for myself, when the longing gets intense. Not the parched desert of my earliest youth, or the topical island I occupied for a time, no it was these haunted trees that had captured me. For now, anyway. Some day I'm sure I'll grow sick of them.
I nod in pleasant agreement with his statement, eyes hooded. "And what would you know about death?" I ask, question mild on the surface. Beneath it hangs brittle resentment. Oh yes, it's easy to make comparisons when you have never died. Have never been ripped back from the beyond and had your soul clumsily reattached to a body tired of holding it. So very many things are worse than death.
My smile has gone wintry, but it remains in place. Practiced pleasantness that stutters on his next words. Only for a delighted crow to fly from my lips. "Vicious boy! As a matter of fact, yes. I have a daughter younger than this old splinter, though her father did end up ghosting on me." I giggle at the private joke, eyes rolling.
"And what about you?" I prod with a conspiratorial tone, hip swinging into his playfully. "Young and handsome, I'm sure you have your share of lovers in the wings. Or have you driven them all off with that charming demeanor of yours?" My smile is darkly amused by now, and my mind thoroughly engrossed in the tale of Obscene.
@[Obscene]
For all its dark history, it is the safest place I've ever known. The closest thing to home I've made for myself, when the longing gets intense. Not the parched desert of my earliest youth, or the topical island I occupied for a time, no it was these haunted trees that had captured me. For now, anyway. Some day I'm sure I'll grow sick of them.
I nod in pleasant agreement with his statement, eyes hooded. "And what would you know about death?" I ask, question mild on the surface. Beneath it hangs brittle resentment. Oh yes, it's easy to make comparisons when you have never died. Have never been ripped back from the beyond and had your soul clumsily reattached to a body tired of holding it. So very many things are worse than death.
My smile has gone wintry, but it remains in place. Practiced pleasantness that stutters on his next words. Only for a delighted crow to fly from my lips. "Vicious boy! As a matter of fact, yes. I have a daughter younger than this old splinter, though her father did end up ghosting on me." I giggle at the private joke, eyes rolling.
"And what about you?" I prod with a conspiratorial tone, hip swinging into his playfully. "Young and handsome, I'm sure you have your share of lovers in the wings. Or have you driven them all off with that charming demeanor of yours?" My smile is darkly amused by now, and my mind thoroughly engrossed in the tale of Obscene.
@[Obscene]