05-31-2021, 02:44 PM
It is the heat.
(She mistakes it for her mother, because it had always been so warm in Tephra. When they had emerged -- for they had emerged, she had not been born the way the rest of them had been born -- it had been to a place so humid she had struggled to breathe at first. But this is not her mother.)
The flowers reach for her, but the flowers were not made for this heat. The kind of heat that warps the air and they wilt, despite how fiercely they want to reach for her. (She does not know that she is magic, she cannot call them back to her.)
It is such a strange ache that pulses through her for this is her first taste of loss. She lifts her head, her brow dark with confusion, and turns her focus to the source of the heat. And she is so surprised to find a child standing there that she forgets her grief. (Gone, just like that. But she will not always forget it this easily. No, she will not always be a child.)
“Oh,” she says and she smiles, her mouth golden. Gleaming. (It does not occur to her that there is something about him unnatural. It does not occur to her that perhaps she should be frightened by the way the skin cracks and chars.) “Hello,” she says and tilts her head, so impossibly white compared to his.
Unperturbed by the way he looks at her, she takes a step toward him. “Does it hurt terribly?” she asks, quietly.
(She mistakes it for her mother, because it had always been so warm in Tephra. When they had emerged -- for they had emerged, she had not been born the way the rest of them had been born -- it had been to a place so humid she had struggled to breathe at first. But this is not her mother.)
The flowers reach for her, but the flowers were not made for this heat. The kind of heat that warps the air and they wilt, despite how fiercely they want to reach for her. (She does not know that she is magic, she cannot call them back to her.)
It is such a strange ache that pulses through her for this is her first taste of loss. She lifts her head, her brow dark with confusion, and turns her focus to the source of the heat. And she is so surprised to find a child standing there that she forgets her grief. (Gone, just like that. But she will not always forget it this easily. No, she will not always be a child.)
“Oh,” she says and she smiles, her mouth golden. Gleaming. (It does not occur to her that there is something about him unnatural. It does not occur to her that perhaps she should be frightened by the way the skin cracks and chars.) “Hello,” she says and tilts her head, so impossibly white compared to his.
Unperturbed by the way he looks at her, she takes a step toward him. “Does it hurt terribly?” she asks, quietly.
Fractured moonlight on the sea
