10-25-2021, 07:41 PM
She watches when Bolder shifts into a sparrow, chattering loudly at the shadow squirrel, but her attention is drifting. It’s back home in Tephra with her mom and wherever Malik is. It’s back in Hyaline on that night where nothing particularly terrible happened (in her memories, anyway) but she had still cried when she got home.
Sickle doesn’t feel very brave right now as a squirrel in this tree with Bolder. She turns her head to him when he squawks and encourages her to join him on his branch but getting closer to someone from Hyaline is the last thing that she wants to do.
So she shakes her head, unable to get any more words out through the thick clog in her throat. She lowers herself as much as she can against the branch she is clinging to. As though if she just holds it tight enough, she might be able to disappear. She might be able to forget who her dad is and how completely confusing it is to meet someone nice from Hyaline when she’s convinced herself Malik is being tortured there.
But maybe Bolder isn’t nice at all. Maybe he is just pretending, like Gale had.
And maybe the shadow is coming to take them both back to the mountains.
This thought further roots her to the spot where she is, unable to move at all out of fear except for the tremble that shakes her furry tail.
Sickle doesn’t feel very brave right now as a squirrel in this tree with Bolder. She turns her head to him when he squawks and encourages her to join him on his branch but getting closer to someone from Hyaline is the last thing that she wants to do.
So she shakes her head, unable to get any more words out through the thick clog in her throat. She lowers herself as much as she can against the branch she is clinging to. As though if she just holds it tight enough, she might be able to disappear. She might be able to forget who her dad is and how completely confusing it is to meet someone nice from Hyaline when she’s convinced herself Malik is being tortured there.
But maybe Bolder isn’t nice at all. Maybe he is just pretending, like Gale had.
And maybe the shadow is coming to take them both back to the mountains.
This thought further roots her to the spot where she is, unable to move at all out of fear except for the tremble that shakes her furry tail.
@bolder