06-15-2017, 09:35 PM
the incense that sun on prairie offers to sky
“I appreciate you for that.”
She lifts her head back up to pierce the humid gloom that surrounds them; “So, do you think you’ll stay or do you need to explore more?” It is a casual question, despite how curious she is to know the answer. “But I know the road ever beckons,” she remarks offhandedly, for it once beckoned to her before something in her broke and made her stay.
She cannot help but smile up at him; no doubt of his appreciation exists in her, he has been as candid with her as she has been with him. Still, she cannot help but feel a small thrill go through her like a shiver at his words. It was not the same to be appreciated by her twin brother, or their mother and father, or even Giver, who has long been absent more so than present though she can never forget his face or the way his eyes burn like stars when he looked at her. But she had never truly been appreciated, either. It was new and unexpected, and she liked the way it made her feel.
A black ear flicked back at his small noise of shock; she had felt his gaze on her, as heavy as the heat that built beneath her fur and knew that he had witnessed the change coming on her as she pushed further into Tephra’s humid depths. Crossing the threshold had induced a visible change in her - the outward conflagration of her hair as it burst into living flame that writhed about her neck and flanks and seemed not to burn her skin at all. Spark understood his surprise, had made a similar noise herself the first time it had happened though it had not just been her hair that caught on fire but all of her, and that had been most frightening of all. It had been so easy to surrender to it, to let herself burn up and become elemental for those first few moments… it had been so hard to reclaim back her flesh and bones.
He tells her not to apologize to him and she smiles again; he was, at times, altogether too kind and she found this a rather endearing quality about him that made her smiles come quick and easy to her face. The flames quieted down and her hair became her own again as she ducked her head towards her black shielded breast in shy happiness as he talks of how beautiful her home was. She heard the hush of awe in his tone and knew that too, to be genuine as her black hair fell across her mismatched eyes and she stared at her smoking feet, the flames having died out there too but left the little bit of river she stood in still bubbling.
“Yes,” she murmurs, “Yes, it is.”
Spark