03-13-2021, 08:06 PM
THESE DAYS I DON’T PRAY WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES
I JUST BITE MY TONGUE A BIT HARDER
I JUST BITE MY TONGUE A BIT HARDER
He tries not to feel patronized, infantilized by the way she speaks to him. He knows that he is a child in her eyes, but he feels as if he has lived a thousand years. He feels as if the stench of death has aged him prematurely. It has had such devastating effects on him, but he does not tell her this. Instead, he draws in an unsteady breath and swallows thickly and nods. He tries not to let his heart flutter with hope. If Mazikeen wants him to deliver news to his mother perhaps it means that she is not here to send him away. It means, at the very least, that he will get to see his mother again.
“I will tell her,” he says, so gravely serious, so desperate to convey that he can be trusted with whatever task she yokes him with. He is capable. He is young and he is small and he is sometimes crippled by self-doubt, but he will do whatever she asks of him. “Whatever you need me to do, I will do it.” This is a promise he will keep, no matter what.
He sets his jaw and his nostrils flare and that ice-dipped halo hangs low on his brow as he levels her with that solemn stare. His breath is thin as he tries not to draw in too much of her death. (How rude, he thinks, she had died for him, the least he can do is take long, deep breaths of it. She has sacrificed herself for him. She had taken that strange half-step toward him. She had asked him if he was all right. She had done it for him and he cannot even bear to smell it on her. Such a weak, pathetic thing he is. It makes his knees tremble.)
Her question kicks the air out of his chest, arrests his heart and he sucks in a sharp breath, eyelids fluttering. “I,” he begins and then abruptly closes his mouth. He stares at her, breathless, a long moment. And then, finally, he shakes his head. He is not a liar, Selaphiel. “No,” he tells her, honest. “I know that Breach has made Hyaline a haven for shifters. I know that I am not welcome here and it is only a matter of time until I will be told to leave.” He swallows hard, painfully, and finally looks away.
“I try my best to stay out of the way,” he says this quietly. Ashamed. “Like maybe everyone will just forget that I’m here, but it’s starting to take its toll. It’s hard to live here knowing I’m not welcome.”
“I will tell her,” he says, so gravely serious, so desperate to convey that he can be trusted with whatever task she yokes him with. He is capable. He is young and he is small and he is sometimes crippled by self-doubt, but he will do whatever she asks of him. “Whatever you need me to do, I will do it.” This is a promise he will keep, no matter what.
He sets his jaw and his nostrils flare and that ice-dipped halo hangs low on his brow as he levels her with that solemn stare. His breath is thin as he tries not to draw in too much of her death. (How rude, he thinks, she had died for him, the least he can do is take long, deep breaths of it. She has sacrificed herself for him. She had taken that strange half-step toward him. She had asked him if he was all right. She had done it for him and he cannot even bear to smell it on her. Such a weak, pathetic thing he is. It makes his knees tremble.)
Her question kicks the air out of his chest, arrests his heart and he sucks in a sharp breath, eyelids fluttering. “I,” he begins and then abruptly closes his mouth. He stares at her, breathless, a long moment. And then, finally, he shakes his head. He is not a liar, Selaphiel. “No,” he tells her, honest. “I know that Breach has made Hyaline a haven for shifters. I know that I am not welcome here and it is only a matter of time until I will be told to leave.” He swallows hard, painfully, and finally looks away.
“I try my best to stay out of the way,” he says this quietly. Ashamed. “Like maybe everyone will just forget that I’m here, but it’s starting to take its toll. It’s hard to live here knowing I’m not welcome.”
Selaphiel
@[Mazikeen]