❝ magical nonsense — ?! ❞ the summoner had laughed, shaking her head in fond disbelief. the lights above danced across the night sky, flitting around the flickering stars with such ease & insouciance alina had long ached to feel. it was as if each casualty, each life taken & each drop of blood spilt during the war had shackled themselves to her wrists, the weight of the guilt dragging her closer to the dark depths of the earth where not even her light could reach ─ but here, perched on a fallen log while streaks of colour painted the sky, the bonds of her grief had unwound. she felt light as a feather. ❝ you say nonsense, i say art. ❞ she did not deign him with a pointed look the way she had done so often before, for she was quite occupied with memorizing his creation, yet when his weight settled on the log beside her, she did not hesitate to shuffle closer. ( if asked, alina would argue it was solely for the purpose of seeking warmth, but that she could summon herself. companionship was a gift only he could grant her. ) ❝ i wondered whether or not to scold you for your unoriginality. but then i came to enjoy it, the symbolism of your laziness. ❞ a dull blade in the shape of her elbow tickled against his side, a teasing tone to her words. ❝ you & i, mirrored versions of each other. ❞
❝ i have many names. marya is the only one i chose myself. to hide, to forget ... ❞ she had taken him up on the offer of sharing his cloak & now sat pressed against his side, head just shy of resting against his shoulder. perhaps she should have told him sooner, or perhaps she never should have at all ─ still, the words tumbled from her lips with ease, as if they had been standing on a cliff’s edge for far too long & the horror of the awaited fall had softened to a yearning for the descent. ❝ but my parents named me alina. ❞ the name, albeit hers through and through, as old & as young as she, felt foreign on her tongue. but there ... if she just shifted her tongue, let the taste settle a little, there was an aftertaste one could only describe as saccharine. it tasted like a reunion of her two selves, like returning to one’s childhood home to find the walls no longer quite so suffocating. cold winter air filled her lungs, and as she released the breath, sweet relief swelled within her chest.
