for every tyrant, a tear for the vulnerable
in every lost soul, the bones of a miracle
She does not expect to see anyone she knows out here, though she hasn’t been to Silver Cove since leaving it to return to Hyaline nearly everyone she has ever met is there, protected from the plague. Why would they leave? Choosing that safety over their home had seemed wise, but in her heart of hearts does she not also think herself braver for remaining at home? It's a dark thought, a twisting bramble of a thing that she would not share with anyone, not even Lie. She respects and admires her queens and is thankful there is a place where their people can be safe. But once she was sick, and the plague had rooted in her body and spirit she began to resent the retreat. She is alive, strong, and Hyaline is the one lover that she will never ever stray from.
These are dark thoughts she will one day regret, as she may regret having walked out into the forest today. Maybe.
Clayton barrels out of the trees and kensa tosses her head in surprise. He stops before her and she recognizes him immediately, breathing him in. He’s likely come from the cove, is probably uninfected. “Clayton.” Her silvery voice is breathy with her surprise, and they study one another with mild confusion. He’s a man now, come into himself in a way he was not the last time she’d seen him. It is much the same with Lie, she thinks of the bands of muscle beneath the cremello coat of the one who waits at home for her. He is beautiful. Clayton too, is beautiful. The green that climbs up his legs and brightens the points of his frame is different from the forest blue-green all around them. Except the ferns--he seems to fade into them. The spirals of his horns rise up over his head through the windswept tangle of his vibrant mane--they fit him better than they had last summer.
“I was just out for a walk. I don’t have anything to fear from roaming out here.” She says by way of admitting she is ill, and challenging him to say he is not afraid. At home, as council member or ambassador she would have never spoken so, she was gentler there, better and sweeter. That was not false, and neither is this.
“What are you doing out here? I would have thought you’d gone to the Cove.” Obviously he has left, if he had ever intended to stay there at all. Almost everyone has chosen that place over home. Who is she to judge, wandering away from her favorite place in the world and into the dark forest. She steps close again, making up the space he’d given her because the energy that brought here here tells her to, and the hard edge in her wants to see if he’ll retreat now that he knows she is sick. She draws his scent off the dark skin of his neck and then walks past as she murmurs. “You smell like you’ve just come from there.” She doesn’t slide along his body like she would with Lie, but she is close enough to feel the radiant heat from his skin, and the she turns back walking off through the green ferns with a swing of her hips that she cannot help.
@[Clayton]
