The world is too small for someone like Altar. She belongs to the stars and the cosmos. She belongs to the things that lie beyond it. She is made of stardust, of galaxies. She is carved from the breath of comet trails and the space in between. He cannot imagine what it must feel like to be trapped here on this earth, where everything is so dull and dreary in comparison, and for a single, treacherous second, he wonders if perhaps she stays because of him and Sepulcher. If they are the reason she doesn’t free herself entirely.
But this thought is quickly squashed as he realizes how wrong it is.
She could never want to stay trapped just because of them.
He shakes his head, wondering at how the same world that feels too small for her feels far too large for him. Although he is physically massive, strong and healthy and fit, he could never quite figure out how to navigate the intricacies of this world. He is left with nothing but the stumbling hope he can follow her.
So he does.
She rests against him and he straightens, struck with the need to stay vigilant—to watch over her as she places this immense responsibility in his hands. He leans down to brush the forelock out of her eyes and stiffens as he realizes the presumptuousness of the move before he pulls back, looking out before them.
“I would very much like that,” he says in his gravelly voice, not sure how to tell her that she is his home. That he feels more at home here next to her, with their brother nearby, than he could ever feel elsewhere.
turn your head toward the storm that’s surely coming along