tell me Atlas what is heavier?
the world or its peoples hearts?
the world or its peoples hearts?
The echo of a cry in the distance does not distract him from his focused consideration of her, but it calls to that new and primal part inside of him all the same. Urging him to shift, to change, to heed the call. Return to the drenched sky above while the light still lingers, so that he might pretend for another day that the shadows don't feel more like home. He lingers because she is like the moon in the fading light, a beacon that draws the eye and prompts musings and considerations merely by existing, giving material to poets and illiterate bastards alike.
It feels as if they're both waiting for something. He isn't sure it's the same thing.
She moves from the tree. Every twitch and glide is natural, but does nothing to ease the sensation of otherness he feels when he looks at her. There is only a mild curiosity as she invades his space, eyes falling to the finger that touches firmly against his chest. She is still Maea, just as he'd said before. He is confident she won't hurt him - not physically, as she proves with the wicked sharpness of her words. Fair is fair at least.
It is a mortifying ordeal, to be seen so plainly, but it was a sacrifice he had to make in order to have her reveal herself in kind. She is the first. Harper hopes she'll be the last. Words turned paltry instead of prophecy and portent. "People see what they need to see," he rumbles softly in turn. Not 'want', as so many say in tamped out idioms. As her finger taps against his heart, Harper's lips twist into a smile filled with sardonic bitterness, like gnarled dark branches that arc overhead.
"My kindness is as part of me as this is." Dark, macabre, dangerous, whatever Maea wants to call it. "They never ask - so I never tell." Some days he feels as if Phoebe is waiting for him to do it. Open up, reveal everything to her. It is sweet, in a sad way, to know that she will be forced to wait forever if she chooses that path of respecting his privacy. Lifting a hand, he presses on the back of hers, flattening her hand to his chest. "Life is full of choices. We both have to make ours." You cannot keep existing aimlessly.
It feels as if they're both waiting for something. He isn't sure it's the same thing.
She moves from the tree. Every twitch and glide is natural, but does nothing to ease the sensation of otherness he feels when he looks at her. There is only a mild curiosity as she invades his space, eyes falling to the finger that touches firmly against his chest. She is still Maea, just as he'd said before. He is confident she won't hurt him - not physically, as she proves with the wicked sharpness of her words. Fair is fair at least.
It is a mortifying ordeal, to be seen so plainly, but it was a sacrifice he had to make in order to have her reveal herself in kind. She is the first. Harper hopes she'll be the last. Words turned paltry instead of prophecy and portent. "People see what they need to see," he rumbles softly in turn. Not 'want', as so many say in tamped out idioms. As her finger taps against his heart, Harper's lips twist into a smile filled with sardonic bitterness, like gnarled dark branches that arc overhead.
"My kindness is as part of me as this is." Dark, macabre, dangerous, whatever Maea wants to call it. "They never ask - so I never tell." Some days he feels as if Phoebe is waiting for him to do it. Open up, reveal everything to her. It is sweet, in a sad way, to know that she will be forced to wait forever if she chooses that path of respecting his privacy. Lifting a hand, he presses on the back of hers, flattening her hand to his chest. "Life is full of choices. We both have to make ours." You cannot keep existing aimlessly.
Harper
