heaven help a fool who falls in love
Adalyn loves it. The way the ground shudders under her feet and the trees sway because their roots are dying. The way the monkeys hoot in fear and the birds take flight to escape it. She loves the way the rivers are upended from their flow and the waterfalls cease their falling. She watches the world around her fall and shatter and erode and burn and her lips curl in excitement because something new will happen. Something new is happening.
When it is all done, she feels drained and yet rejuvenated. There is a strange sensation (an added feature, an excuse for something lacking, a new addition to replace) on her back and she twists her head. Feathered wings perch against her sides, soft and downy and gold like her hair. Adalyn laughs, her mouth wide and her blue eyes bright. She tries her water (she tries to curl her fingers around their silky depths, to raise the ocean just a little higher, to send a ripple across a lake) but there is nothing. Beqanna has taken her waterworks from her and replaced them with a pair of wings to give the wanderer flight.
She acknowledges the compensation, although she does not agree with it.
She woke in the field, nestled against the cattails alongside the lake, but she has been here before. Adalyn is clumsy with her wings at first. She runs to take off, and the strange movement of up and down with new muscles causes her to dive before she rises again. She had always been told she’s a quick learner. Her still ungraceful flying brings her to the meadow and she lands with a heavy step, tripping before quickly catching her weight.
Her eyes take a moment to adjust to the sheer mass of horses here; as though all of Beqanna is in the meadow at this moment. Then her eyes catch sight on a familiar face and she runs toward him. “Dad!” Her mouth stretches in a grin, wild and carefree despite the trouble that has happened. “Did you see what happened?” Her eyes are wide with excitement and they glance around at the small circle of other horses. “Did you all see?”
adalyn