Rainforest Cliffs
07-14-2017, 02:36 PM
Something about the way she looks at me as I approach makes me think she’s almost glad to see me, a fleeting thought that raises my brow, as well as far too many questions to pursue the notion further. Feeling some of my wary tension that she’s still pissed at me slake away, I don’t crumple into weakness, like she does, changing from a glacier into a heap of powdery snow always shifting shape beneath the breeze; I stay me, golden, without a mark of rust or tarnish, but soft, malleable, attaining the temperature of the world around it.
Weakness hidden beneath a gilded veneer; not bronze, like my father, not diamond or crystalline…
Gold.
"Some of mine did too," I tell her, when she speaks of her amulets having done this to her, rather than just the land, "but not his. And the ones that did, did nothing but glimmer uselessly."
Like the Gods had, when they’d died, I think bitterly, the stab of the real hollow ache behind the self-defense mechanism of blame rising sharply in my breast. I sigh, a heavy thing, a forceful pressure upon the tears that want to spill forth with childish ease across a face to old for such whimsy.
"No, I’ve only come this far, myself," I answer honestly, because I have no reason to lie to her or anyone else, not anymore. Fuck it. If people want to get mad at me for things they could do just as well, they could sit on my horn and rotate. While food is surely a worthy endeavor, my quest is for shelter. Let the horticulturists and flower peddlers of the world deal with figuring out what won’t kill us from what will turn us into flying goats. I want to be warm, damn it, to have a place where my daughters can be, too. "I’m just looking for a place it isn’t raining."
Something about her gaze is desperate, though, so I give what little I do know about how to pick out a safe food from a dangerous one – not that I really know what I’m talking about. Most of my survival skills are based primarily in the “dumb luck” category.
"Stick to stuff that looks edible, and don’t eat more than a small bite and wait an hour or so," I tell her, shrugging, "otherwise, trust your nose. If it makes it tingle or it smells off, don’t eat it. Kept me alive while I was looking for the bitch who shall not be named. Done okay for the past day. Been sticking to the grass-type things."
Albeit, a bit sore in the gut, considering it was all a lot more waterlogged than my belly was used to.
Weakness hidden beneath a gilded veneer; not bronze, like my father, not diamond or crystalline…
Gold.
"Some of mine did too," I tell her, when she speaks of her amulets having done this to her, rather than just the land, "but not his. And the ones that did, did nothing but glimmer uselessly."
Like the Gods had, when they’d died, I think bitterly, the stab of the real hollow ache behind the self-defense mechanism of blame rising sharply in my breast. I sigh, a heavy thing, a forceful pressure upon the tears that want to spill forth with childish ease across a face to old for such whimsy.
"No, I’ve only come this far, myself," I answer honestly, because I have no reason to lie to her or anyone else, not anymore. Fuck it. If people want to get mad at me for things they could do just as well, they could sit on my horn and rotate. While food is surely a worthy endeavor, my quest is for shelter. Let the horticulturists and flower peddlers of the world deal with figuring out what won’t kill us from what will turn us into flying goats. I want to be warm, damn it, to have a place where my daughters can be, too. "I’m just looking for a place it isn’t raining."
Something about her gaze is desperate, though, so I give what little I do know about how to pick out a safe food from a dangerous one – not that I really know what I’m talking about. Most of my survival skills are based primarily in the “dumb luck” category.
"Stick to stuff that looks edible, and don’t eat more than a small bite and wait an hour or so," I tell her, shrugging, "otherwise, trust your nose. If it makes it tingle or it smells off, don’t eat it. Kept me alive while I was looking for the bitch who shall not be named. Done okay for the past day. Been sticking to the grass-type things."
Albeit, a bit sore in the gut, considering it was all a lot more waterlogged than my belly was used to.
