[open] blossoming alone over you

[Altissima]

It takes everything in her not to step away when he moves forward, to make herself look at his face and see her own conflicting emotions in his eyes. Hers are a pale blue with her wariness, an icy wall protecting her thundering heart when he says her name. She can feel it ache at his uncertainty because she knows it so well and there’s a shine in her eyes she would deny with her last breath at his question. Altissima says “Yes” and leaves it at that because she doesn’t want to admit the full truth - more than anything. And she wants to send the question back to him but she cannot risk anything other than an affirmative answer. So she’ll pretend the answer is yes until they part and then she’ll wonder if she inflicted her presence on him when he did not want it. There’s another pause and she makes a tiny shuffling step forward, bringing them to a more comfortable distance - and because she wants to show him that she means that yes. Her mind scrambles for something to say. Altissima thinks there should probably be a list - but she had been very effective at running from even her thoughts. She never thought she'd be here again, even if some of those thoughts she had been run from held hope for such a meeting. “You’re going to be a grandfather.” She offers, unsure of what to say about the past - so maybe the future is a safer place for them to find their footing together. “Well, you already are but…” Altissima trails off from her thoughts of Senna, wondering if this is old news to him. If he has other children, other families. But she offers a small, tentative smile and she thinks of Tarian and his strength, how he made her want to try. “There will be another this spring.”

image by yoricade