09-06-2021, 07:00 PM
liesma
He smiles and it’s not nothing but she does not smile back, just watches it until it falters at the corners and fades away altogether.
Could she call it back at will? If she compared him to other brilliant things, would he smile again? It is nice to think that she is capable of it but she does not test her ability now.
They are nearly the same age, she is sure of it, both still burdened by their youth. But their gravities are different. She is a sober, serious thing because her father has never smiled and her mother is the most spectacularly beautiful thing either of them have ever seen. And this boy’s gravity is… what? There is an uncertainty to him. A kind of grief she has never known and cannot translate exactly.
But when he asks if the stars can be his friends, too, she nods. There is no reason she should keep them from him. “Yes,” she says and, to her, it really is that simple. She turns to press her mouth to her own shoulder, gently touching a smoldering star on her skin before she shifts her deep, black gaze back to his face and tells him, “you have to make friends with these ones first, though, because I don’t know how to call the others down when I’m not alone yet.”
He was practicing, too. She glances at the embers and back up again. It seems he has made more progress with his ability than she has. She takes a step closer, like she might move to press her nose into the heat of the ashes, but she doesn’t. She stops short and studies his face, asking instead, “where is home?”
And when he mentions his strange friends, she shakes her head and says, “my friends aren’t strange.” It is not defensive, but soft, sincere. The stars are not strange, they are wonderful, sometimes she imagines that they kiss her cheek softly and sing her to sleep. “Why are your friends strange?”
Could she call it back at will? If she compared him to other brilliant things, would he smile again? It is nice to think that she is capable of it but she does not test her ability now.
They are nearly the same age, she is sure of it, both still burdened by their youth. But their gravities are different. She is a sober, serious thing because her father has never smiled and her mother is the most spectacularly beautiful thing either of them have ever seen. And this boy’s gravity is… what? There is an uncertainty to him. A kind of grief she has never known and cannot translate exactly.
But when he asks if the stars can be his friends, too, she nods. There is no reason she should keep them from him. “Yes,” she says and, to her, it really is that simple. She turns to press her mouth to her own shoulder, gently touching a smoldering star on her skin before she shifts her deep, black gaze back to his face and tells him, “you have to make friends with these ones first, though, because I don’t know how to call the others down when I’m not alone yet.”
He was practicing, too. She glances at the embers and back up again. It seems he has made more progress with his ability than she has. She takes a step closer, like she might move to press her nose into the heat of the ashes, but she doesn’t. She stops short and studies his face, asking instead, “where is home?”
And when he mentions his strange friends, she shakes her head and says, “my friends aren’t strange.” It is not defensive, but soft, sincere. The stars are not strange, they are wonderful, sometimes she imagines that they kiss her cheek softly and sing her to sleep. “Why are your friends strange?”
i see you shining through the treetops
But i don’t feel you pulling strings anymore
But i don’t feel you pulling strings anymore
@Fyr