great clouds rolling over the hills
and if you close your eyes, does it almost feel
His eyes are on her – invested in the conversation, for once, and he watches her smile go broader – and then there is a sound, a pressure, and a relief. If one who had never had wings had been suddenly granted them, he imagines they would feel uncomfortable, heavy, unpleasant; but Brennen had been born with his wings and the weight is right. Immediately, almost reflexively, he spreads them, gives a little flick, and then settles the inky black feathers neatly into place at his sides, where they cover nearly his entire body and trail in length to the ground behind him.
Brennen doesn’t have to look at them – he can feel them, and see the dark color out of the corner of his gaze, which is focused on her. He’s seen a lot – but surprise and gratitude can startle even the most insistently stoic. “Uh…yes. Always been a bit oversized,” he answers the question without thinking, still reeling. But the gratitude flows hard on the heels of his words, a warm rush of affection for this stranger. He doesn’t know her motives (though he’s sure she has some) but at this point he could care less. With his wing, he is nearly whole again. “Thank you.” Two words, simply words, but a blind and deaf person could see the depth of the truth in his gaze, hear it in the words.
He will continue to strive to be worthy of earning his other magics back, because he values them, but this is what he needed to exist.
“Perhaps I shall,” he responds, forcing his tone back into lightness and the emotions back into the bone-and-ice cage at the back of his mind. Finding his rhythm, his faint drawl of laughter, he chuckles at her last words. “I have always held most of the sisters in positions of respect just below my own brothers,” And, well, some of them rather higher though he is loathe to admit it. “And I will claim I have never started any quarrels with any of your sisters.” Or, he won’t admit to that either. And really, who could tell? Some relationships are just built on friendly (and sometimes not-so-friendly) friction. Scorch comes immediately to his mind.