07-27-2015, 01:11 PM
there's a moment we make a decision
not to cower and crash to the ground
She doesn't break until her sister does. But when Thorny, stoic Thorny, starts to cry, Val can't help but match her. Tears for tears, they stand embraced, both sharing in their moment of infinite loss. not to cower and crash to the ground
What do we do, her sister asks, and Val is unsure. She's always been the sure one, the one with the plan, the one who never hesitates, who rarely thinks through, who acts on pure instinct. And perhaps that's what she really is: perhaps she's simply a ball of instincts, acting without thinking, rather than a friendly creature.
But now? Now, all of her certainty is gone, ebbed away on the shore of the beach, as surely dead as her mother and her father. Now she knows nothing but that she aches for the both of them, for Thorny and for Val, for their mother and their father.
What do we do? The only thing they can do.
She blinks once, twice, forcing herself back into calm and composure. As though she can stop the tears by sheer force of will. She succeeds somewhat, the tears aren’t quite as thick now. She remains wrapped around her sister, the yin to Thorrun's yang, drawing support from her twin just as she gives it.
But when she speaks, her voice is no longer wracked by tears. Quiet, subdued, hushed – but she's in control. "I don't know what we do." she blinks her eyes closed. "I don't know, other than to keep…surviving." She says the last word almost as though it's a foreign concept, something academic, something she'd only just started to consider.
"It's what they'd want, isn't it?" She isn't sure if she's asking her sister, asking ghosts, or asking the wind.
valkerine
sad tomboy daughter of covet & librette