| of the heart | |
| For a time Zevu is silent, and Kikka doesn’t interrupt his thoughts as they walk together. It is companionable, and good, and for a little bit her heart doesn’t ache quite so badly. This is all right, she decides. She’ll see Trell again, she knows this, and so she makes an attempt to set it aside to more fully enjoy her company now. She glances at Zevu. What will Trell think of her most recent friend? For she likes him, she does, and hopes that her brother will see the merits in the young pale stallion when they eventually meet. For it’s not a question of if they will, but rather when. Kikka will insist they return to the Bay at some point if Trell is for some reason satisfied with her findings during this excursion. She wants to see the land when the sun doesn’t ever set.
"That is good to hear," she murmurs as he breaks the silence to respond to her questions. As he talks she tries to understand where he’s coming from, but it baffles her. Trell has been such a critical part of her life, of her very existence; how can Zevu feel nothing about the loss of his own twin, much less the loss of the rest of his family members? But she criticizes herself almost immediately for the thought. She has no care for the parents she doesn’t remember. To her, it isn’t a loss. "How long were you and Auraleigh together?" she asks. Perhaps he doesn’t have enough memories of his twin to deserve to feel a great loss. Certainly, the older she and Trell get, the greater his significance to her becomes; if Zevu and his twin were parted when they were very young, before there was time for them to exist outside the womb together... this makes some sense to her, and is easier for her to begin to understand why it might not feel like such a loss to him. She thinks it is hard to miss what one has never had. Zevu’s compliment is unexpected, and she turns her head to regard him fully. She doesn’t sense any sarcasm or undercurrent of derision in his words; he means it. Kikka weighs his words with extra care. "I suppose you’re right. Thank you," she says, and feels another notch better about her current separation from Trell. He had said something to that effect when convincing her it was for the best to split up— you can do this, Kikka. The swim will be so much shorter than from the mainland, and you did that no problem. You know exactly what I want to know about that island. There’s too many for us to go to one by one together; that’ll take forever. Splitting up to explore makes the most sense. Sudden pain in his voice stirred again the guilt she’d felt to hear him question her faith in him. When have I ever steered you wrong? You’ll do this for me, won’t you? Of course she would. Of course. "Yes," she says, and holds her head a bit higher, extending her stride just a bit as confidence trickles through her. "You are right. He knows I can do this; he wouldn’t have sent me away otherwise. He trusts me to do this for him. So I will." She tosses her head and gives Zevu another side-long glance, a habit ingrained in her now from all the times she’s subtly glanced at her brother while trying to gauge his mood before she speaks so as not to accidentally set him off. Certain words and the way she phrases things are bound to spark his irritation depending on his moodiness in the moment, and now it’s an unconscious behavior on her part with all others as she checks their expression before she speaks. Even if, as in this case, she’s not at all worried that what she has to say might upset or annoy Zevu. It’s just a bad habit. Her eyes slide away from him and she indicates the surrounding forest with her nose. "These must provide a nice wind break when it’s colder out, right? I kind of like being under the trees. But I think it’d get a little creepy when the sun goes down. All those shadows and creaking branches... Brrr." She shudders her skin with a laugh, as if beset by chills. "Is the Inlet very similar to the Bay? Forested, sliced by cold little streams, rocky caverns on one end? Or, how is it different?" She peers ahead as if that will thin the trees and reveal the rocky beach they’re headed towards that much sooner. "This beach’ll be interesting though. Where’s your favorite part of home?" | |
kikka | |