that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
He is surprised into genuine laughter when she sticks out her tongue. It is deep-throated and he nearly loses himself in the joy of letting himself just be a boy in that simple moment. He wonders what it would have been like if he had met her before the curse had grabbed a hold of him. Would they have been friends if they had met when he had just been the young, rambunctious son of Hyaline? Would they have grown up together once she had found her way? His expression sours a little when he realizes that even this is a fool’s memory. He was no shifter like his father. By the time she was in Hyaline, he would have been kicked out. There is no world in which they would have been friends. No world for his fantasies.
His mood darkens with the thought, the contrast more severe next to the moment of bubbling laughter, and he is suddenly struck with the desperate need to leave again. To no longer be scrutinized under her sharp gaze, uncomfortable with the feeling that she sees far too much—that she sees all of him.
“It feels fantastic, thank you for asking,” he counters, his voice sharper than he intended. “I can’t tell you how much I love wandering from place to place with absolutely no one to remember me.” It’s more vulnerable than he had intended to be, but he supposes that it’s not only he that gets under her skin, but also the other way around. Her needling prickles and his coat twitches as though irritated by a pest.
Struggling to grasp at the mask of apathy again, he thinks hard at how well his father donned such a thing, he forces his body to relax—forces himself to dull the sounds and the scents, always so overloud and overwhelming in moments like these. “It’s better than the alternative,” he sniffs, grasping for some control in the situation again. “I could be weighed down by someone,” there’s nearly a pointed glance at her, but even he is not so cruel as to pin that on her. “It’s easier to just be by myself.”
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
