build me up from bones, wrap me up in skin
hold me close enough to breathe me in
There are certain things she does not understand.
She doesn’t understand why her parents have left her without notice. She misses her mother’s gentle touch, her father’s gentle wisdom. She remembers the easy days of her young life, the waking to a bright sun making a silhouette of the volcano, the way Eira would tuck her wayward red hair behind her ear. She remembers how they would laugh – the lot of them, her multitude of happy siblings (besides the one, of course) – when they would gather together as a family. Weir’s rambling, busy, scholar voice is like a phantom calling out to her still, a ghost stuck repeating all the lessons he’s already eagerly taught.
She doesn’t understand why they have left or why she doesn’t try to fill the gaping hole their absence causes. Radiant lives alone, her own anchor and compass, and it is enough for a spell. Tephra is bustling and keeps her from absolute solitude, anyway. And while she lives amongst them, she doesn’t work with them. The roan girl is young. Even if she knew exactly what she wanted to pour her efforts into, she is far too much in love with learning to tie herself down yet.
There is so much out there she hasn’t seen, so much left to explore. This she understands fully – the need to expand both her mind and the places her feet have carried her. She needs to feast her eyes on the world and fill her brain with all she can; she knows she will never be full.
Radiant slips into the meadow as quietly as a breath mists on a cold day. Her amber eyes rove over the gathering of horses, seeing the dizzying array of colors and accouterments that make them all so unique. She looks back at her own fire-red coat then, imagining herself lilac purple or periwinkle blue instead and laughing softly. Her gift is as unobtrusive as the coat she wears, and she thinks she much prefers it that way. It makes it her’s this way, inside of her, only offered at her behest (the part of both her parents that will never leave her).
Without realization, she makes icicles of her mane and tail (perhaps remembering the way her mother would push her hair back). They fall down her neck and hit her hocks, freezing in the chilly autumn air. She doesn’t feel it, though. She doesn’t see the boy who comes in front of her suddenly, either, looking back at herself as she had been. “Oh,” Radiant says, her once wide smile pressing into a rounded ‘O.’ He is a handsome thing, is her first thought, while her heart still pulses with adrenaline. I’ve seen him before, somewhere, is her second thought, when her smile reforms easily on her face. “Butterfly boy!” It connects, and she rather shouts it into the bleak fall air in triumph. She remembers her first trek outside of Tephra, the playdate of a great number of children well over a year ago now. What she doesn’t remember is his name. “What ever happened to that poor creature the others were so keen on catching?”
