07-16-2023, 11:02 PM
I was a dreamer before you went and let me down —
The world has made her wary, but not unkind, and for that reason alone she is not deterred by his cool demeanor.
She would take indifference over the cruelty that Cronus had so often shown her any day; the cold she could shield herself against, but poisoned barbs fashioned from words were far harder to dislodge and forget.
“Oh,” is all she says in response to his short answer, but she nods her head in understanding that it is all she is going to get. Such a small word carried with it a heavy weight, but it is a weight she is well-acquainted with; not everyone had a story they wanted to revisit. She does not press him for anything else, even though his reluctance to speak further only kindles a new kind of curiosity, one that she does her best to mute from her expression. She is too similar to her mother in this regard—always wanting to fix things, thinking that she could mend broken hearts and coax trust from those most hesitant to give it.
She doesn’t know his story, she reminds herself, and he does not owe it to her tell it.
Besides, she is too broken to fix anyone.
“I used to,” she answers him, her tone perhaps a little too bright, at least in comparison to the flatness of his own voice, but she doesn’t mind. “A very long time ago, when it was still called Heaven’s Gates.” It felt like several lifetimes ago, and when her heart twists, it is not out of a longing for the past, but instead a disappointment in herself—that so much time has passed, and she is still largely the same. Still a wide-eyed girl that did not seem to fit in anywhere, unmoored and without a purpose. For a brief moment a shadow seems to pass over her face, but in a blink she shutters it away, replacing it with another smile. “My name is Kennice, by the way. Do you live here?”
She would take indifference over the cruelty that Cronus had so often shown her any day; the cold she could shield herself against, but poisoned barbs fashioned from words were far harder to dislodge and forget.
“Oh,” is all she says in response to his short answer, but she nods her head in understanding that it is all she is going to get. Such a small word carried with it a heavy weight, but it is a weight she is well-acquainted with; not everyone had a story they wanted to revisit. She does not press him for anything else, even though his reluctance to speak further only kindles a new kind of curiosity, one that she does her best to mute from her expression. She is too similar to her mother in this regard—always wanting to fix things, thinking that she could mend broken hearts and coax trust from those most hesitant to give it.
She doesn’t know his story, she reminds herself, and he does not owe it to her tell it.
Besides, she is too broken to fix anyone.
“I used to,” she answers him, her tone perhaps a little too bright, at least in comparison to the flatness of his own voice, but she doesn’t mind. “A very long time ago, when it was still called Heaven’s Gates.” It felt like several lifetimes ago, and when her heart twists, it is not out of a longing for the past, but instead a disappointment in herself—that so much time has passed, and she is still largely the same. Still a wide-eyed girl that did not seem to fit in anywhere, unmoored and without a purpose. For a brief moment a shadow seems to pass over her face, but in a blink she shutters it away, replacing it with another smile. “My name is Kennice, by the way. Do you live here?”
KENNICE
@
Gale