the heaviness in my heart belongs to gravity; kensley

[larke]

carried by the current of the morning
miles below the surface of the dawn

If she knew his question, she would be able to tell him how desperately she loves her mother.

How she worships her.

How she wants nothing more than to grow into the grace that her mother has achieved, to be able to find time to care for her home and her family. Of course, she does not know all that goes into what her mother shows to the world. She does not know the exhaustion that plagues her mom, even with her newfound magic to keep it bay. She does not know about the pain that she has felt throughout the years and the way that she still carries those nightmares between her teeth and tucked behind her breastbone.

No, she does not know these things.

She just knows the gentle kiss of her mother against her brow and the flowers that bloom around her.

And it is these things that soothe her as she smiles at the stallion before her, confused and more than a little uncertain about where she stands and what she should do. “I saw Atrox recently,” she blurts out because she isn’t sure what else to say. “There was a war, in our home. He was fighting.” It had been an exhilarating thing to witness, but she does not miss the war or the pain that was brought along with it.

She frowns at what he says next. “You do not look so old,” she muses before she shrugs.

“But Magnus and Atrox do not look so old either. Perhaps I am not such a good judge of age."

this is not the place that I was born in
but it doesn't mean it's not the place where I belong

larke