you pour the water —
For something so pretty, she does not crave beauty. She would cut herself on the cragged edges of broken glass every time. She would pull her belly through it. She would stand apart from the mess and paint herself in the aftermath. She craves that ugliness. She craves the raw truth of it because its the only thing that makes sense to her. Her mind cries out for the ragged edges of it; for the tangible truth hidden in the intangible silence.
So she doesn’t startle when he approaches, serpentine and graceful, his eyes as sharp as her fathers although cooler than she recognizes.
His remark pulls a smile from her blessed smile, a twitch of velvet lips as she regards him. There is an echo of a laugh in her throat, something rich and breathy that evaporates the second that it hits the air, like smoke released too soon. The humor of it washes from her delicate features just as quickly and she is left studious and solemn in the aftermath, studying him with an intensity that does not adopt the features of scrutiny but mimics it close enough.
“Is there?” she muses aloud, breathing the lie so easily. “I am not sure that I have ever heard it.” A tilt of a haloed head as she glances around them, noting dispassionately that they are now are alone in these ruined lands. Her chest relaxes slightly at the realization, her mind bathing in the silence of his solo emotions. “Perhaps you can fill me in on the details,” she prompts with another ghost of a smile. And then, almost reluctantly, an introduction:
“My name is Baptiste.”
— I would haul the stones
