You're so cold
but you feel alive
Swallowing, the girl tried to imagine that kind of environment. Where everything was a dangerous game, a battle of wills, and the people closest to you were not necessarily allies, or even a source of strength. It seemed a harsh, brutal place even to her who had grown up with people dying from starvation, landsharks and monsters in the too-long night, trapped in a bubble and unable to do anything but cope and survive. If she had been forced to give up dreams to work hard and settle for the harsh realities that they never came true for the living, then Sunjata had been the opposite - forced to chase those dreams beyond what was fair, to ensure that he didn't die in another way.
A curious mirroring of their circumstances, yet still there were so many similarities that Maea marveled at it. She stood lost in thought for a while, not quite finding anything to say that wouldn't be another 'sorry', when he shifted. Shrunk away, melted into large wings so vibrantly blue they were almost purple. She shied back a little when he came towards her, afraid of getting in the way somehow, and gaped at bird as it dug claws into the bookshelf. The wing stretched out towards her, as if to say that he had real ones too, not just the ink; with a startled laugh she held out a hand, carefully brushing a finger over the tips of the large feathers.
"I knew it," she said, almost relieved to know she hadn't imagined the touch of color to that black and white nightmare. "Fish, cat, goat, now bird... is there anything you are not, Sunjata? I think your mother would have been very happy to see you with wings like these... You can go wherever you want now, and no one would be able to stop you."
A curious mirroring of their circumstances, yet still there were so many similarities that Maea marveled at it. She stood lost in thought for a while, not quite finding anything to say that wouldn't be another 'sorry', when he shifted. Shrunk away, melted into large wings so vibrantly blue they were almost purple. She shied back a little when he came towards her, afraid of getting in the way somehow, and gaped at bird as it dug claws into the bookshelf. The wing stretched out towards her, as if to say that he had real ones too, not just the ink; with a startled laugh she held out a hand, carefully brushing a finger over the tips of the large feathers.
"I knew it," she said, almost relieved to know she hadn't imagined the touch of color to that black and white nightmare. "Fish, cat, goat, now bird... is there anything you are not, Sunjata? I think your mother would have been very happy to see you with wings like these... You can go wherever you want now, and no one would be able to stop you."
lay your hands on me
one last time
MAEA
