09-12-2020, 10:00 PM
CrownS
Sabbath has always been his safety net up to this point. She plucks him from the river when he wades too far out and she comforts him when he scrapes his knees from the various tumbles he takes throughout the day. He tiptoes the razor’s edge because she has taught him that failure is not the end of all things, but a new beginning. A new lesson to forge him into something stronger. She would coat herself in that same thick loathing if she knew her teachings had made him so eager to meet her enemy.
He can see something unkind, unpleasant lurking there behind Eight’s gaze, but he doesn’t recoil from it. If he pricks his finger on his thorns, then he will hardly be worse for wear. But so far there are no sharp edges here. There are simple tricks that turn his wings to feathers and back again.
Crowns follows Eight’s gaze and he gives a soft gasp of surprise to see the thin feathers there. Blue, like him, like the ocean his father delves into when he leaves. “Oh,” he whispers in disappointment when they are gone again, back to dripping water.
He brings his gaze back to the stranger when he speaks. Eight. The name is entirely foreign to him, detached from whatever memories others may have associated with it. He’ll never know that this new friend once requested that he be murdered before he drew his first breaths.
“I am!” he agrees when the magician speaks his name, delighted to be known already. He laughs easily as the water turns to and from feathers again and again. He’d heard his grandfather whisper angrily about magicians before, but he fails to see the issue thus far. Instead, he wanders right into Eight’s palm and plants himself there.
“Oh, sure! This is Tephra. It’s got snakes and flowers and trees. Lots of birds, too,” he explains excitedly. “Do you like spooky things? Sometimes the moonlight catches their eyes just right so they glow.”
Crowns turns his head then, angling this way and that as he searches to see if there is anything gazing back at him. Normally there are spiders or irritated squirrels, awoken by his games, but he can see nothing in the dark of this dreamscape. When he turns back to Eight, his own eyes reflect what little light there is, an unintentional shifting as scales ripple across his small cheeks.
He can see something unkind, unpleasant lurking there behind Eight’s gaze, but he doesn’t recoil from it. If he pricks his finger on his thorns, then he will hardly be worse for wear. But so far there are no sharp edges here. There are simple tricks that turn his wings to feathers and back again.
Crowns follows Eight’s gaze and he gives a soft gasp of surprise to see the thin feathers there. Blue, like him, like the ocean his father delves into when he leaves. “Oh,” he whispers in disappointment when they are gone again, back to dripping water.
He brings his gaze back to the stranger when he speaks. Eight. The name is entirely foreign to him, detached from whatever memories others may have associated with it. He’ll never know that this new friend once requested that he be murdered before he drew his first breaths.
“I am!” he agrees when the magician speaks his name, delighted to be known already. He laughs easily as the water turns to and from feathers again and again. He’d heard his grandfather whisper angrily about magicians before, but he fails to see the issue thus far. Instead, he wanders right into Eight’s palm and plants himself there.
“Oh, sure! This is Tephra. It’s got snakes and flowers and trees. Lots of birds, too,” he explains excitedly. “Do you like spooky things? Sometimes the moonlight catches their eyes just right so they glow.”
Crowns turns his head then, angling this way and that as he searches to see if there is anything gazing back at him. Normally there are spiders or irritated squirrels, awoken by his games, but he can see nothing in the dark of this dreamscape. When he turns back to Eight, his own eyes reflect what little light there is, an unintentional shifting as scales ripple across his small cheeks.