the heaviness in my heart belongs to gravity; kensley

[larke]

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

She feels her youth so acutely some days that it is difficult to breathe around it.

She is not the child that she once was, but as she approaches her third year of life, it is difficult to not feel herself clinging to the edges of it. Clinging to the innocence that she was afforded when she was but a girl roaming around Tephra under her parent’s watchful eye. Now, she approaches adulthood and feels like it grows within her like a weed. She has been given a herd to watch, a home to protect to the best she can.

It is this she reminds herself of when she sweeps her gaze up to study him.

“I would love to hear more about it,” her voice is quiet but steady and she doesn’t stutter as she just sits there beneath the steadiness of his face. The exhaustion that pulls at the muscles too tight, the fatigue that she knows so well. It draws at the healer within her—draws at the golden light she can’t hold back.

It unspools even further, reaching for him.

She lets it sink into him and find its way through his body. It weaves through his muscle and bone and finds all the different ways that he may hurt, may ache, may fall apart around the edges.

When it is done and she draws the healing back into her, she ducks her head.

“I’m sorry,” this is quieter. “I should have asked.”

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

larke