will the dream come back?
will i know where i am?
will i know where i am?
My steps go quiet as I back away from the shrine, the crown I wove—palm fronds and the last stubborn blooms of the season—settled at its base. The colors in the road seem to brighten in the offering’s shadow, prismatic and soft like breath on glass. Salt rides the Leafchange wind, and for once I don’t joke to fill the spaces inside me.
"I'll prove I was worth it," I murmur, hoping Frey hears. They’re the one who pulled me forward through time, who decided I should get a chance. A gift and a debt, both.
I turn, tugging my jacket tighter as the wind hauls at my braid and teases loose strands across my face. I don’t bother chasing them down. My hair is about as tame as I ever get. Sometimes I understand why my mother keeps hers short—easier to manage when the world won’t be.
The road behind the shrine is a rainbow, more vivid here, the hues swirling like they’re alive. I aim my steps for the purple stones because it feels like a rule I used to know. Bare feet, two taller shadows on either side, their hands holding mine. We used to do this—laughing, pretending the other colors were lava. I smile without teeth, the kind that feels more like a memory than a grin.
I slow. The wind keeps going.
It’s unfair, how you had to grow up so fast.
Damien said it gently, like handling glass. I didn’t want to believe him, but the words keep catching. What did I skip when I skipped five years? What got left behind with the old size of my hands?
I breathe in the sea and the flowers and the faint resin of palm, and I keep walking, heel to toe across purple. If there’s proof to give, it’s going to be in the steps I take from here.
will there be birds?
Theea
