[private] take a look in the mirror

[Altissima]

Altissima had been heading towards this meadow already, drawn by the setting of the sun and the chance to enjoy the light a little longer without trees in the way. With spring brought something new to the powers in her, and she no longer felt as drained during the night but some habits are hard to break. The open sky calls to her, painted in brilliant shades that are deepening with each step she takes. A blue-tinted leg is in the middle of taking a step out of the treeline when someone nearly crash-lands in the meadow. At first annoyance flickers through her until she recognizes who it is and then she cannot name the emotion that rises up instead. Altissima does not believe in fate - but Tarian landing in the very meadow she had just been about to step into rattles her. What are the chances that they would both be here? There is a brief moment where she wonders if he had come here to find her but surely not. That wouldn't make any sense, just like how nothing about that last night she had seen him made any sense to her. And the issue with avoiding conversation with others meant that she had a lot of time on her own to think about it. To stew in her confusion about how she didn’t understand how they had gone from poking and prodding at each other to… whatever stupid thing she had been about to do in the hot spring. Then he had left her to the waters, left her to enjoy them, but she had not been able to go back in. She had wanted to, wanted to lower herself beneath the surface until it washed over her and she forgot what it was like to feel a chill on any scrap of her skin. Until it erased the coldness in her that had nothing to do with the air. But she had looked at the spring and just saw the two of them standing there, saw herself foolishly reaching out to him like she expected him to reach back, like he’d be interested in her touch. When she looks at Tarian from the shelter of the trees Altissima thinks about that dangerous moment when she thought that first urgent no had been him asking her to stay. And how for a brief flicker of a heartbeat that had been what she wanted. She doesn't leave now, even though she should. She walks into the meadow instead as though that had been her intention all along and she hadn't hesitated. Her guarded sky blue gaze traces his sweat-slick body, the slightly odd way he’s holding his wings. Concern threatens to flicker through her mind before she can shove it aside, keeping it behind the walls she’s slammed back into place. Hoping they can stop her from wanting to jump off the cliff she is walking towards yet again. As she approaches, the voice she speaks with is not the soft one she had used before he had left, it is one that dances the line between playful and pointed - as though she isn’t riddled with confusion about where they stand, or if they stand anywhere at all, and isn't wondering just what the hell he'd been up to in order to be in the state he was in. “What is Loess’ Champion doing so far away from its borders? Anyone would be able to sneak in.” She wrestles with both wanting distance and wanting to prove she’s unaffected. The latter of these two desires wins out but she is tense when she comes to a stop a companionable distance away.

artwork by cal

@[Tarian]