[private] hold back the river; altissima

[Altissima]

She doesn’t respond to his question about the luck being gone from Beqanna, doesn’t tell this near-stranger about the things that make her feel untethered on this continent. How they could have years upon years with no natural disasters and still the inhabitants of these lands would find a way to tear themselves and the earth beneath their hooves apart. Instead she just remarks in a cool, quiet voice. “A land is not just rivers and grass.”

She blinks her violet eyes at him when he steps closer and they grow pink with annoyance and wariness but she remains where she is and they cool back down again.

She’s not sure what to make of him even though Altissima only feels her initial aggravation as a distant echo. And there’s a smile to be found with his next question and she raises her eyes to the now-risen sun and feels the light of it play across her skin. She allows a few small beams to dance out from her around her head before blinking and cutting them off with a brighter smile. “I can absorb light, and the meadow at dawn is the ideal spot.” She looks up again but does not explain in words - she has none to explain her love of the vastness of the sky and the colours that still play across it this morning. “And then when the night is dark, I can keep the sun by my side.”

It’s an odd thing to say, she thinks, but even when her eyes come back down to meet his again she doesn't allow herself to feel any sort of embarrassment. Not when someone else would witness it.

altissima

@[Tarian]