small offerings; Lilitha, any

[Spear + Spark]

For once, neither of them has anything to say to the other.

It began when they dared one another to leave the lands of the Sunrise.

It began with that first step outside the Mountain’s farseeing shadow.

It began when they garnered their first taste of complete separation --

They had come to a fork in the trail.

Which way to go?

They had bickered for hours and then -

He took the left fork and she took the right.

Their time apart had changed each of them, aged them even.

They came back to that same fork in the road almost a year later.

He was thicker through the shoulder, broader in neck and chest.

She was as a mare should be, small and lovely and much leaner than he.

They were older, and things between them had definitely changed.

Neither of them cares much if they will be remembered.

They think of old friends they’ve made but have no real hope of remembrance.

Still, they traipse down old familiar trails that know the heft of their feet and even the scattering of small half moon indentations in the dirt look oddly comforting to each of them.

Faces look familiar to them, but they do not call out of them in nickers and neighs of recognition.

Both of them remain quiet which for either of them, is a bit of a rarity and quite the oddity to be sure.

They have their secrets after all, and it is these secrets that haunt their eyes that never seem able to find the other’s face for very long before sliding away. He thinks things, and she thinks things, and their trek inward is hardly in unison for them like it used to be - his strides are short and choppy as he tries to keep from pacing ahead of his much smaller sister, and she tends to fall back anyway, constantly in thought that has nothing to do with him and he knows it - it knots his brow in consternation but she refuses to open up to him about it. She knows there are things that he’ll never tell her, so she keeps to herself and follows along out of diligence more than anything else.

Whatever happened out there, sundered something in them…

Spear & Spark