with her sweetened breath and her tongue so mean
she's the angel of small death and the codeine scene
Bright feels them too, the scattered pieces of her family through so many generations, tangled like constellations across a wild sky that existed only in her heart. They flickered and they burned and they left scars on the inside of her chest, branding her as their own- and oh, she was. She felt invisible tethers binding her to each one in turn, unbreakable spider silk, and she wondered if they felt it too or if their minds were too small, too mortal, too flawed to notice something so beautiful, so important.
Her pale violet eyes turn to settle on Woolf, on his small mulberry face and a pair of green eyes that felt too sharp for his newness, and she knew hers must look just the same. When he sorts through Atrox thoughts, thumbing through truths and memories like he was turning pages in a diary, she flinches. It is a strange moment, one she cannot explain, a reflex of how she should feel – sorry to see him lain bare before them. But the feeling isn’t hers, it’s like an echo of morality, and it fades as soon as it flares and there’s only a furrowing in her small brow to even note its passing.
There was nothing this family possessed that did not belong to the twins.
It isn’t until Atrox asks and Woolf answers, that Bright remembers their mother. Again her brow furrows and she feels like she should be more concerned for the mare who had given them life and would continue to do so until the twins could be weaned. But the longer she considers it the clearer it becomes that Woolf is the only one who would be able to coax such feelings from her. For Ilka, their mother, there was only the same feral but vague possessiveness she felt for all of her family.
Mine.
Woolf noses her neck and she shifts even closer, settling against him so close that their shared magic sparked and hummed and pulsed with pleasure. Her eyes flashed pale and perfect and disarmingly wide, and when she turned to hold his gaze she felt that word brand itself across her greedy heart.
Mine.
bright