your mouth is poison; your mouth is wine
(you think your dreams are the same as mine)
What he viewed as quiet, she viewed as peaceful—the kind of peace part of her longed for. The kind of peace that meant she might actually get to live past her youth. She did not see that same that he did; she saw safety and sureness and absolute. It was relieving to be in a place where she did not worry that she might be jostled and fall to the ground, where she wouldn’t be overlooked by the louder of meadow folk. (Still, there was a piece of her hear that longed for the adventure and danger and thrill.)
So her eyes are bright when she looks at him; so happy that she reaches over to nudge his neck with her delicate nose, breathing out with joy at the newness of the land washed so clean with the dawn. “I don't mind the quiet,” which is a half-truth. She didn’t mind it sometimes, although there were times when she wished for anything but it.
She wished she was strong enough to weather the loud.
When he motions forward, she follows quietly, watching her step as the grass reached up to tickle her. She paused for a second and threw her head back, closing her eyes as the warmth of the sun fell over her. She breathed in deep, the air sweet and floral. If she had to imagine a heaven, it would look something like this. Perhaps that is why the name is so fitting. She had never known. When she opens her eyes, he is by the tree, and it is majestic. The branches sweep around it, and the leaves unfurl in the morning light. “It is absolutely grand,” she breathes and she moves toward it, circling the trunk in wonder as she glances up toward the sky spotting through the leaves. “Does it have a story?”
She cannot hide the excitement in her voice; she so hoped that it would have a story.