11-22-2021, 10:48 PM
Sierra’s correction had the whip of a parent admonishing a child for believing in fairytales. Thalia refrained from pointing out that she must have been too deep in the dream too at the time (whatever that meant) yet had not woken with any new and mysterious tattoos on her skin. She didn’t exactly want to court the blame, and had little intention of actually arguing for it, least of all when it meant explaining why she even thought herself capable of the possibility. Something in Sierra’s practical, no nonsense manner reminded her of Aylin, and she found it a disconcerting comfort. Thalia intrinsically understood the need to compartmentalise the things that could not be easily explained, lest they wear away the fortifications of sanity. Tristan’s tattoo was a mistake. A warning. A consequence. No more mystical than falling and suffering a bruise. She accepted it, easy as that. More than that, she was grateful for the moment of dry and steady land.
Tristan said nothing to the contrary. Presumably they had already had this conversation, the silt of it all stirred up again by Thalia’s unmajestic fall into their lives. He must have already accepted Sierra’s answer. Yet there was something so sorrowful to him, so quietly lost, that she wondered if what seemed like strength and certainty was in fact the stillness of a silently drowning man. Thalia had spent a lifetime of waking up each morning to the sharp sting of the unknown, and while she appreciated Sierra’s assertive and steadfast answer, she also knew how it felt to be at the mercy of something beyond yourself.
How it felt to be told time and again not to dwell on it, even when the advice came from a place of love.
Admittedly their oddities weren’t the same. She couldn’t claim to understand the differences gold eyes and wolves made, and she didn’t know the dream as Sierra spoke of it. Thalia couldn’t offer advice, and she didn’t even really know what appeared to trouble Tristan so. He had Sierra, who, golden eyes revealed or no, was clearly gifted the same way, and seemed to know far more than either of them. But she plunged a hand into that still water anyway, to discover if there was a hand needing to grasp back.
“I’ll help you try to find what it means.” She tapped her own chest, to show she meant the shadowy ink across his own. “If you wanted, I mean. The sketches... sometimes there are meanings in them. The symbols look different the way I drew them.”
She watched for a reaction, a little curious. The last time she had reached out to a “monster” in good faith, it had bashed her head against rocks after all. Not that she exactly remembered the encounter beyond darkness, fear, and awe. Only the injury on her leg tickled the memory, coaxing it reluctantly toward the light (the light?). Tristan’s declaration made it somehow more real though, less a figment of her imagination. She shivered, and didn’t refute the claim. She didn’t recall much from watery shadows, but the creature’s image was burned into her mind. If it had wanted to kill her, she would be dead. And she wasn’t. That was both exhilarating and terrifying.
Tristan’s flat acceptance of her duality pulled her from the thought and back into the present. Her resultant smile encompassed them both, since he spoke for them both, though Sierra had pulled back like waves retreating from the shore. “Everything, huh?” She laughed a little, and wondered if he were the type easy to blush, though she knew he had not meant that. She did not keep him on the hook, though her tone remained light and teasing. “Are you intending to visit every one of my dreams now? I think you might bite off more than you could chew, if you did. The drawings come most mornings.” Amusement twinkled, though there was something both warm and sad in the way she carefully accepted the gift of those promises. A bridge to two lives offered so nonchalantly, and he could have no idea what it meant, or why her eyes shone a little as the emotion rippled through her.
She shifted then to pull the dry clothes into her lap, reached for her bag, and wobbled to her feet. The rush pounded her head. “I should patch myself up,” she said, blinking a little, because it wasn’t just tears swimming her vision as she padded her way to the bathroom door. Careful not to open it too wide and share the carnage of the walls inside. “Afterwards I’ll show you where I found her. I hope you are both good swimmers!”
Tristan said nothing to the contrary. Presumably they had already had this conversation, the silt of it all stirred up again by Thalia’s unmajestic fall into their lives. He must have already accepted Sierra’s answer. Yet there was something so sorrowful to him, so quietly lost, that she wondered if what seemed like strength and certainty was in fact the stillness of a silently drowning man. Thalia had spent a lifetime of waking up each morning to the sharp sting of the unknown, and while she appreciated Sierra’s assertive and steadfast answer, she also knew how it felt to be at the mercy of something beyond yourself.
How it felt to be told time and again not to dwell on it, even when the advice came from a place of love.
Admittedly their oddities weren’t the same. She couldn’t claim to understand the differences gold eyes and wolves made, and she didn’t know the dream as Sierra spoke of it. Thalia couldn’t offer advice, and she didn’t even really know what appeared to trouble Tristan so. He had Sierra, who, golden eyes revealed or no, was clearly gifted the same way, and seemed to know far more than either of them. But she plunged a hand into that still water anyway, to discover if there was a hand needing to grasp back.
“I’ll help you try to find what it means.” She tapped her own chest, to show she meant the shadowy ink across his own. “If you wanted, I mean. The sketches... sometimes there are meanings in them. The symbols look different the way I drew them.”
She watched for a reaction, a little curious. The last time she had reached out to a “monster” in good faith, it had bashed her head against rocks after all. Not that she exactly remembered the encounter beyond darkness, fear, and awe. Only the injury on her leg tickled the memory, coaxing it reluctantly toward the light (the light?). Tristan’s declaration made it somehow more real though, less a figment of her imagination. She shivered, and didn’t refute the claim. She didn’t recall much from watery shadows, but the creature’s image was burned into her mind. If it had wanted to kill her, she would be dead. And she wasn’t. That was both exhilarating and terrifying.
Tristan’s flat acceptance of her duality pulled her from the thought and back into the present. Her resultant smile encompassed them both, since he spoke for them both, though Sierra had pulled back like waves retreating from the shore. “Everything, huh?” She laughed a little, and wondered if he were the type easy to blush, though she knew he had not meant that. She did not keep him on the hook, though her tone remained light and teasing. “Are you intending to visit every one of my dreams now? I think you might bite off more than you could chew, if you did. The drawings come most mornings.” Amusement twinkled, though there was something both warm and sad in the way she carefully accepted the gift of those promises. A bridge to two lives offered so nonchalantly, and he could have no idea what it meant, or why her eyes shone a little as the emotion rippled through her.
She shifted then to pull the dry clothes into her lap, reached for her bag, and wobbled to her feet. The rush pounded her head. “I should patch myself up,” she said, blinking a little, because it wasn’t just tears swimming her vision as she padded her way to the bathroom door. Careful not to open it too wide and share the carnage of the walls inside. “Afterwards I’ll show you where I found her. I hope you are both good swimmers!”
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