Mad disquietude in a lifeless sky (part 2)

Ashen brims smash into a grim, uneasy line… her ambiguous reply awards little in the way of insight. Additional questions fall upon the swelling heap of unspoken inquiries. She baits my curiosity, forsaking it to plead for clarity -for the stories she held in- but I don't have the boldness to press into those tender subjects which might upset our fragile balance. Instead, my paternal heart aims to offer comfort via the form of enduring silence. Though, when she speaks again…that bemusement can't help but spike higher; circling the word, ‘we’ like a famished scavenger. The plural definition wavers as my daughter disappears into a swath of peppered fibers. When she reemerges, these painted limbs curiously pause their momentum. Eyelids flinch apart, there was no mistaken the origin of the amber quill she places before me …Fina…her memory invokes a warm mix of adoration and grief. In my mind's eye, her flame laced arms are spread, arcing powerfully above her sun-fire engulfed expression. These coal stained lips quiver warily as they dip and brush with certain fondness against the plush edge of a fragile, silken wing. Tis no wonder she remembered…Fina adored children, the ember sired avian usually preferred their company over mine. “Fina,” vocals murmur, a soup of complex forlorn emotion, “you honor her.” Even though my bonded are safe from affliction and this horrible place…their guidance and comfort is sorely missed. “Thankee,” golden irises flick up, aiming to catch her eye. “She is beautiful…” With meticulous care, these lip slip across the breakable frame. Gently, they pull the precious bauble from those saturated granules and carry it backwards, twisting to place it beneath a protective swath of ivory hair and downy feather. “Who is the other that deserves my gratitude?”

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