Singing Like a Bird

“Breakfast, darling. I don’t doubt Rugar has been providing well for you, but I cannot help myself sometimes.” He smiles and hands the basket for her to take, “I was hoping I could talk to you, if that’s alright. Do you mind if I come in?”

A beat, “Does Rugar mind if I come in? Oh bother, think I got myself into a tizzy here,” he smiles, playful.

I don’t know, okay? I don’t know. 

Why doesn’t he feel as restless as I do? Why doesn’t he want more? Is there something wrong with me that I can’t settle, can’t rest easy, can’t breathe, can’t move? And for what’s worse, I can’t decide. I’m as frozen in place as Dawnstar. 

I can’t... I can’t sort out the crap that’s inside my head. It’s too much. It’s too hard. I just want to go. And then Roog smiles at me like that, and Jean-Pierre comes by with bread and treats, and Maksstops in to check in on me, and I can’t imagine being anywhere but here. I’m being torn right down the middle. 

Lindsey Stirling & Lizzy Hale -- Shatter Me

She’s had this dream before. 

Not always with Evariste. Sometimes she’s chasing her sister, the mother she never met, the phantoms she deliberately left in the dusty back-street hovels that raised her. Sparrow wakes silently. She’s careful not to wake Rugar as she slips out of bed. She dresses silently in the dark, easily maneuvering around every memorized landmark of Rugar’s house. No – our house, she corrects herself. It’s hard to train herself to think in permanence. 

Breathing in the cold leaves her lungs aching and brittle. It’s exactly the kind of clarity she needs to out-finesse the needling grasp of unanswered questions. Dawnstar offers her a horizon bruised black and purple, and before she can find her feet, she’s after it. 

“I won’t tell anyone,”  He promises.  He came to vent, to complain about the changes that have happened in the Sanctuary, but all of that feels petty in comparison to this.  He wants to spend every moment he can with her, and he doesn’t want to spend it complaining.  “Are you leaving soon?”

He watches her sadly. He wants to discourage her, to encourage her that her place is here, among her friends.  They aren’t exactly like family, but they’re close enough.  His stomach twists, and that feeling is familiar.  

It’d be so easy to be selfish, but he’s been selfish before.  There’s only one way that path has led for him.  He forces a smile for her sake.

“The best Companion they’ll ever have.”

[He lowers his eyes to her when she says it.  His stomach sinks;  No matter what he figured was the truth, he’s always harbored a lingering hope that she would return.  He takes in a slow breath, and releases it between his clenched teeth.]

I think I knew that.  [He admits it softly, albeit with regret.]  I want you to do what you want to do… And so, I suppose there’s no point in trying to change your mind?