your mouth is poison; any

[adaline]

— A D A L I N E — your mouth is poison; your mouth is wine (you think your dreams are the same as mine) Time is fleeting for Adaline. It is the sweeping of winds down the mountain corridor or the bristling of the oak against an upcoming storm. It is fragile, as fragile as she herself is, and beautiful in the way that all short-lived things are meant to be. You see, each morning that Adaline rises, she accepts that it may be her last. There is peace in knowing that you are not meant to live long, at least not here. There is tranquility in acceptance. And yet, beneath the calmness of her pink eyes and the serene smile pulling at the ends of her lips is the boiling river of her blood and the ache in her glass bones. Her mother’s bravery seeps through her every cell, and there is something within her that thirsts desperately for adventure or passion or something other than the light fingers with which everyone seems to hold onto her. How she sometimes despises the way she can be coddled. But, alas, she does not fight it. Instead, she watches as all of the mares approach and her expression does not change from the subtle quirk at the corner of her lips. It was kind of them to offer to take her in (for that is what she assumes they are there for). She did not have the heart to tell them that she would be but a temporary companion. Breakable things do not last long in this world. “Adaline,” she finally breathes in a voice as insubstantial as her body itself. A breathy voice with notes of silver bells. “My name is Adaline.” She is kind, and she looks each of the mares in the eye before rolling her delicate shoulders and fluttering the useless wings behind her. “I am not sure what I am looking for,” her voice trails off and all of the words she should have said fill her head (purpose, love, security, meaning) and instead gives them a barely perceptible smile, “but I am hoping that you can all help me find it.”