09-09-2021, 07:11 PM
She knows nothing of the weight.
And would it make any difference at all if she did?
She had pledged allegiance to her sisters and then she had pledged allegiance only to the winter that lived inside her. How long has it been now since the last time she set foot in Tephra? (Perhaps this is a disappointment in itself. Perhaps the sisters miss her and she has failed them in some irreversible way.)
She watches him, studying the way the crooked smile softens the plains of the magician’s face while the storm sinks bone-deep. (Sometimes she misses the arctic bite of the ice, the way the wind would sink its teeth into the meat of her lungs. Sometimes she misses falling victim to winter. Misses the way she trembled in the cold.)
She cannot relate and it means precious little to hear him say it.
She had not asked him how he disappointed, she’d asked him why but she feels no overwhelming urge to point this out. Instead, she turns her focus to the storm that continues to rage around them.
Right place, wrong time.
She opens her mouth just barely, lets the wind curl sweetly on her tongue. Lets the snow collect on her teeth. And then she smiles, glances at him out of the corner of that glacial blue eye.
“Do you warn them?” she asks and does not elaborate who she means by them, “do they know you will disappoint them?”
And what she doesn’t ask is: are you sorry?
And would it make any difference at all if she did?
She had pledged allegiance to her sisters and then she had pledged allegiance only to the winter that lived inside her. How long has it been now since the last time she set foot in Tephra? (Perhaps this is a disappointment in itself. Perhaps the sisters miss her and she has failed them in some irreversible way.)
She watches him, studying the way the crooked smile softens the plains of the magician’s face while the storm sinks bone-deep. (Sometimes she misses the arctic bite of the ice, the way the wind would sink its teeth into the meat of her lungs. Sometimes she misses falling victim to winter. Misses the way she trembled in the cold.)
She cannot relate and it means precious little to hear him say it.
She had not asked him how he disappointed, she’d asked him why but she feels no overwhelming urge to point this out. Instead, she turns her focus to the storm that continues to rage around them.
Right place, wrong time.
She opens her mouth just barely, lets the wind curl sweetly on her tongue. Lets the snow collect on her teeth. And then she smiles, glances at him out of the corner of that glacial blue eye.
“Do you warn them?” she asks and does not elaborate who she means by them, “do they know you will disappoint them?”
And what she doesn’t ask is: are you sorry?