[private] take a look in the mirror

[Altissima]

The subject of his injury doesn’t allow Altissima to gloat overmuch about illuminating Tarian with daylight. She finds herself wondering if she’ll still be standing here when the moon is out - even finds herself hoping so, if only so she can test her new abilities against the glow that will appear around him. It is easier to tell herself to avoid Tarian's company when he is in Loess and she is wandering the wilds. She drops the sunlight glow for now, though when she does the air around her twinkles a little brighter. Then she watches as he draws his wings close to his side and she realizes it wasn’t the feathered limbs at all, but one of his legs. At his question, she snorts and it is enough to ease herself out of the cloud of concern that had been descending on her. Something about his blasé attitude reminds her of 'not-dying' and she thinks this isn’t just a slight ache. “No, you idiot.” There’s no harshness to the word, though, and it is almost spoken affectionately. Altissima doesn’t let herself dwell on the tone, moving on with an explanation. “Or, kind of. I could just see a little easier - saw how you held your wing. I can move light around but it doesn’t speak to me or anything.” This is a better reasoning than telling him she’d been trying not to look at him too carefully when she had first entered this meadow. That it just took a few jokes to make her forget her plans to turn away from him if they crossed paths again, or that she knew his silhouette well enough to notice when something was off. Perhaps this is her turn for a vigil, though there are likely no monsters to guard him from as the world begins to slip into dusk. She steps closer but it is a wide movement that takes her so they are parallel to each other, facing alternate directions, to better see the leg he is favouring. An instinct she doesn’t really understand rises in her to close the space between them and touch it but before she can so much as twitch her muzzle she is repressing this feeling. What would touching it do? Bring him more pain? Well that might be a little tempting sometimes, just not right now. Altissima can do a lot with light and she's never considered whether healing is one of those tricks. She’d like to try and pretends it is something she would want to explore no matter who had turned her mind to it. Not without permission, though - she wonders if Tarian is as stubborn as her when it comes to these things. Well aware of how she would have rather died than spoken of her weakened state during the eclipse, she turns her head to look Tarian in the eye when she asks bluntly “Well, what happened?”

artwork by cal

@[Tarian]