she's still out there and the chasm grows; any

[irisa]

and the walls kept tumbling down
in this city that we love

She watches his wings change, take on her color – that particular white and oil-slick rainbow. A whisper of the dream reflected back at her, and it’s strange, and disconcerting, but a lot has been strange and disconcerting lately, so she does not press it. She moves her own wings, as if in response, though they stay the same as they always have.
(Were this a dream, though, she could change – make them red as his skin. She wonders what he would think of that.)
He doesn’t answer her, not really, which in a way is answer enough in itself – that weary smile, the hollowed eyes, the fracture in his voice. She finds herself wanting to comfort her, but she doesn’t know how – she’s not used to giving comfort. Not used to giving anything. Besides, she doesn’t know if he wants comfort, she had always thought him to be a man (or boy, when they’d first men) who didn’t mind rough edges. Who was made of them, perhaps.

“I have been…” she echoes, but there is more. He is one of the few who know of the dreamworld – she hasn’t confessed this to many (not that there have been many friends in Irisa’s life to confess it to anyway). Her sister – her twin, the one left behind – knows, but she doesn’t know what’s become of Nyxia. Mother knows, of course, but she fears mother may be mad or dead.
“Strange things have been happening to me,” she says, slowly, wondering how to best phrase it, “I sleep, and I wake up…back there. Where I grew up. Except I’m alone.”
Except I’m its queen. Except it’s my kingdom. Except I’m terrified of it.
She swallows. She hasn’t been clear. She doesn’t have the words to explain what it does to her, returning there, with no idea why or what for.
“I’m tired, mostly,” she says, “I’m very tired.”
It is exhausting, to dream.

Irisa

tarnished x heartworm