11-13-2021, 08:13 PM
with rushing thread of brazen spindles.
How fiercely the heart beats in her chest, railing hard against the cage that contains it, as the wolf and the stallion stare each other down.
(Could either of them really hurt the other? Can shadows damage flesh? Can flesh damage a shadow?)
She holds her breath hard and fast, her pulse echoing loud in her ears, as she watches. Waiting for something to give.
And she expects the stallion, feasting on his rage, to plunge through the wolf standing between them to sink his teeth into her. To tear at the source of all of his anger.
She does not exhale until he relents, his features collapsing around the sharp edges of his scowl, and retreats. And she is a soft thing, Neuna, but she is not a fool.
(Nor is she particularly clever, the third daughter, but she does not open her mouth to argue with the stallion.)
Instead, she watches him return to the pool of darkness beneath the tree he’d pressed himself against, as if bracing himself. And it is a warning or a threat or both that he tosses over his shoulder.
(She had learned early that the opposite of love was never hate but rather indifference. It had been indifference that she had seen in her father, though his heart had softened when he’d touched her for the first time, let his breath fall across her brow. But this is loathing unlike anything she has ever seen and she understands.
Or, at least, she thinks she must.)
So she nods and she calls the wolf back to her side.
“My name is Neuna,” she tells him, though he has not asked and likely would not if he’d been given the opportunity. “In case you should ever look back on this moment and wonder.”
She swallows thickly, exhaling a thin breath, and turns to go.
(Could either of them really hurt the other? Can shadows damage flesh? Can flesh damage a shadow?)
She holds her breath hard and fast, her pulse echoing loud in her ears, as she watches. Waiting for something to give.
And she expects the stallion, feasting on his rage, to plunge through the wolf standing between them to sink his teeth into her. To tear at the source of all of his anger.
She does not exhale until he relents, his features collapsing around the sharp edges of his scowl, and retreats. And she is a soft thing, Neuna, but she is not a fool.
(Nor is she particularly clever, the third daughter, but she does not open her mouth to argue with the stallion.)
Instead, she watches him return to the pool of darkness beneath the tree he’d pressed himself against, as if bracing himself. And it is a warning or a threat or both that he tosses over his shoulder.
(She had learned early that the opposite of love was never hate but rather indifference. It had been indifference that she had seen in her father, though his heart had softened when he’d touched her for the first time, let his breath fall across her brow. But this is loathing unlike anything she has ever seen and she understands.
Or, at least, she thinks she must.)
So she nods and she calls the wolf back to her side.
“My name is Neuna,” she tells him, though he has not asked and likely would not if he’d been given the opportunity. “In case you should ever look back on this moment and wonder.”
She swallows thickly, exhaling a thin breath, and turns to go.
@Ashhal