There are a great deal many things that she feels in this moment.
The exhilaration of knowledge. The fear of what had almost happened. The curiosity of the unknown.
But she does not feel guilt—does not feel anger ash is near failure at bringing her back. So she does not recognize anything similar in him, but neither does she pull away when he holds onto her for a moment—although she considers letting it pass straight through her. Instead she remains, letting his endless warmth sink past the growing ivory and sink into her own bones, warming her from the inside out.
There is an exhausted laugh that follows, a ringing truth that he is perhaps the first to hear. “So long as you put me back together again,” her voice has a rasp to it on the edges, as though someone had taken the sandpaper and roughened up the corners. “And it will be my turn next,” a pause as she closes her eyes.
“Next time.”
Because she knows that she does not have the energy to pursue anything further today.
Instead she keeps her eyes closed, listening to him yawn and stretch—thinking about the proposal. Sleep here tonight? She has no true home to go back to—not that he knows that. She still rests her head in Pangea, more out of habit than anything, but there is no family other than her sister waiting for her.
But how does she tell him that the earth had split open and swallowed her mother whole?
That her father had gladly disappeared into the shadows in the aftermath?
How does she confess such things without making her vulnerable?
So she doesn’t. Instead she, too, yawns and stretches out her head to rest her cheek against her splayed front legs. “I supposed that I could rest,” she murmurs, the darkness of exhaustion closing in on her.
but in all chaos, there is calculation