AMALIA
Like a comet, a meteor, a star pulled from the sky, Amalia crashes down toward Deimos, silver and tawny in the glittering night. Her laughter is more than a cried out sound: it is water to engulf him, light to assuage him, a blanket of love and playful mirth that pours out from her heart and soul. She is used to the Attuned language, the way they speak through more than words, more than thoughts- through feelings, hearts exposed and open, the anxieties and insecurities stripped away. There is no room in an avian mind for terror, for doubt, for concern that he will leave her if he sees all that she is. There is only him and dark night sky and the wind beneath their wings.She does not need to be afraid because she can feel him, his mirth and merriment and wonder with it pulsing in soft but palpable bursts, each one a hymn, a song, a sonnet, a love letter to her soul. It is a lightning bolt of sweet relief, a rescue from the pervasive cold that lingers in the back of her mind, leaving her dark and insecure and always, always, always afraid. If owls could grim then Amalia might have, a vibrant and elusive thing without clouds, the smile she saves for him alone, for days by the river and nights in the bath.
Her talons touch his feathers lightly before she flits away, nimble in her smaller body, coiling tight as she darts through leaves. Through the glade and around the oasis she flutters as he gives chase, slower than him but fleeter, more accustomed, having spent more time upon her wings. It would be easy, perhaps, to dart into the underbrush, to lose herself and lose him too, but the point is not to get away, never to escape: she wants to be caught, wants to be captured, wants always to be the prize he claims.
So she rises again, bursting up into open air where he can easily reach, a sudden upward burst of mobility as she explodes through the trees, trilling merrily, challenge and promise locked in her onyx eyes. Just beyond his seeking talons, just outside his grasp- except she isn't, and she feels the touch of claws upon her, the success of his voice in her mind. Tag, he says, and the girl flips upward, loop-de-looping before setting off, taking her own turn at pursuit.
You are flesh and blood
And you deserve to be loved
and you deserve what you are given
And oh, how much
And you deserve to be loved
and you deserve what you are given
And oh, how much
