Alita finds that Loess is not quite as big as she had once imagined.
Perhaps it is the maze that still eats up so much of its landscape. Perhaps it is the way that the air is full of grief after the war they had helped wage. Perhaps she herself is just getting larger and the things that had once seemed so incredibly big now feel, well, manageable—more ordinary than she had thought.
Regardless, it leaves her feeling a little empty on most days. A little unsure.
She doesn’t like the feelings that she cannot easily understand. She doesn’t like the way that they slip under her skin and make things so difficult to navigate. She doesn’t like the way that they seem to echo within her—the way that she can barely take a step without feeling like she’s falling into quicksand.
It doesn’t matter because her thoughts are snagged on the arrival of the pale gold girl and her companion on the border. Turning her gold eyes upward, the halo atop her head askew, Alita focuses, trying to better see the pair. Frustrated, Alita throws her wings wide and jump upward, climbing high and soaring before tucking her wings and diving. She lands gracefully—the physical is one place the word can be truthfully used to describe her—and she is grinning by the time that she tucks her wings back in again.
“Hi,” she greets, sharp teeth glinting behind her velvet lips. Her eyes move from the young girl to the zebra by her side. She feels a faint rumble of hunger in her stomach and she frowns again. “Did you bring lunch with you or is that,” she hunts for the word, biting her lip before settling on it, “a pet?”
It seems more likely to be food, but she supposes she can never be too careful.
Alita
@[isilme]