oh, these wings, they flicker and my feathers stir
'til I'm an ancient soul in a cascade world
Looking at her now, he cannot help but think of the way Hourglass had looked at him the last time that he had seen her. The way that she had called out his cowardice, been able to pinpoint the most vulnerable parts of him, and he wonders if Bas will do the same. If she will lash out and he will be forced to live the rest of his days in the softness of his memories of the two of them—cradled by his kind recollection.
She doesn’t though, at least not immediately, and he can’t decide whether he is wary that it is coming soon or relieved or certain that he should leave her. But he doesn’t. He is drawn to the innate warmth, to the way that she doesn’t shun him, and there is a momentary desperate need to cling to it further.
Later, he will hate himself for this weakness, but no more than he normally does.
“You look well,” he says with his same somber mouth, with his purple eyes intense beneath the swath of his pale forelock. “You always look well,” he says, stumbling over the words a little. “Beautiful, that is,” he tries to correct, “not just well.” He opens his mouth to say further and then shuts it quickly.
A pause, a slight exhale that he had not realized he had been holding.
“I have been,” he struggles to find the right word to explain how he is. Well loved by his family. Fed. Healthy. Crippled by self-doubt and self-loathing. Burdened by a weight he cannot name. Anxious in even the moments of solitude and rest. An outsider in a world that was designed to love someone just like him.
The loss for words flashes across his features and he says nothing else.
He just looks up, that same puzzled expression on his face as he studies her as if for the answer.
and I'm quick with the bullet when it comes undone
I got a head like a turret with a mouth for a gun
