@arkhambird

She hums, turning to see who is speaking to her. Talia pauses, nodding to acknowledge his question. She looks him over as the hood falls, taking in the scarring.

listen. there's too much about this i like to confine it to six.

Leliana doesn't answer for a long while again, so I sit there watching what remains of the Templars scuttle around the rotunda and timing the crashing of waves outside. My head feels too empty to sleep. Fuzzy like the crackle of lightning. Numb, almost.

Leliana moves, wrestling with the blanket, and before I realize what she's doing, she has it stretched out towards me. "Aren't you cold?" she says when I give her a questioning look.

"No," is the automatic answer; and I'm not, but that doesn't seem to stop her. "I don't think this blanket is big enough."

"Then I suppose we'll have to share." So easy. Just like it was nothing. I lean forward; she drapes a corner around my shoulders and I pull it around. She scooches up against my side before I can finish, and messes about with the blanket before tucking her knees up. Her cheek presses against my shoulder—armored still, no doubt covered in filth, and she lets out a tired sigh through her nose.

"If you wanted a pillow, you could have told me." She doesn't answer, just crushes up against me further until she's comfortable, I think. Before long, my arm starts going numb, and I jostle her until she sits up, and I slide it around her back instead.

The waves on the rocks are constant. Dull through the thick stone, but always there. In and out, like slow, practiced breaths. It reminds me almost of home. Not the docks or Drakon River cutting through, but the long nights where I couldn't sleep, and I'd lie there listening to the rise and fall of my own breath, or my brother's, until eventually I lulled away.

But the water, I remember. I remember where we are, and the thought stirs me with an inkling of dread. "In my dream," I say, and I'm not sure she's still awake to hear it, "there was so much water." Despite it, she hums somewhere below my ruined ear. "That damn demon didn't know shit about me. I fucking hate water." She lets out an undignified laugh, and I can't help but chuckle. "I'm dreading going back across the lake."

There's a pause before she says, "I could go with you."

Review - Broken bird (2024)

Broken Bird is both disturbing and touching. It may not scare you, but it will creep you out.

More fanart for @ask-whitepearl-and-steven. I did a timelapse of this but it turned out really blurry XP

Steven Universe © Rebecca Sugar

A quiet song is enough to release the languid sorrows of someone who holds a grenade to her heart. Both beat to a natural rhythm, but lean towards rival energies-- how to destroy something beautiful with a slight of hand and an impulse not tied to any desire to live.

A withered songbird lets out its music, not for anybody to hear other than itself, while she stands in a copse of decaying maples waiting for the branches to collapse on her like a decaying mansion bound by ivies and built with artificial marble.

The bird and the woman know each other well, both want to be alone with the sullen atmosphere and misty clouds; drinking from the invisible fountain. They only see themselves in another form, searching for paradise in a flimsy moment, and wondering where the candlelight guides them.