[private] i bet on losing dogs

[larke]

She is comfortable in the space beside him—comfortable in most things—and although she is shy, she does not struggle to hold his gaze. Her eyes grow round with delight as he manipulates the light, sending a bird of his own creation toward her and then resting weightlessly above her. “Oh,” she exclaims, her voice delicate and breathy—soft as if she might frighten the bird of light into taking flight.

“That is so lovely,” she sighs, her sage eyes studying his face. “How did you learn to do that?”

She smiles again at his question, angling her head in thought. “I don’t know what I look like,” she says, honestly. She has never spent time looking into still waters or trying to catch a glimpse of the arch of her throat or the curve of her jaw. She has no idea that her eyes are the color of foggy meadow mornings or that the flowers that grow in her mane curl and drape downward to her youthful shoulders.

But her attention doesn’t linger on herself for long. Instead, she looks toward him, frowning a little at the way he so bluntly admits his sister’s distaste for her. “Oh,” but this time it is quiet, rooted in some hurt, rooted in confusion. “I would want her to like me,” she confesses, because she doesn’t know what it means to be disliked—what it means to not be immediately welcomed and wanted and loved.

She brushes it to the side though, trying to not let the hurt take too deep of roots.

“I have a gift too,” she brightens at the thought of it, “but I haven’t really tried it on anyone other than my family before.” Larke feels it rustling within her, the leaves of it blown about. “Want to try?”

—LARKE—

there is not in the wild world a valley so sweet
as the vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet

@[midnight]