Voice workin on empty Is that the kinda way to face the burning heat? I just think about my baby I'm so full of love I could barely eat
because irri has never been more afraid of herself than she is now, young and reckless and her fingers still singed, hair still crackling, eyes still full of watching the church crumble, young and reckless and running. she can't face this, she wont face this, because this isnt real, this isnt happening--
not happening, up until it is, and there are shackles on her wrists.
There's nothing sweeter than my baby I never want once from the cherry tree Cause my baby's sweet as can be She give me toothaches just from kissin me
and this is irri being sarcastic, because 'sweet' is not a word irri would use to describe kylara. terrifying, maybe. or homicidal. forget toothache--the first time irri kisses her, she ends up with frostbitten lips and a cold body curled against her.
but it also rings true, sometimes. sometimes, when irri's head lies in kylara's lap and she feels fingers brushing through her hair, so gently she thinks she's dreaming it. sometimes, when ky presses her nose to irri's, eyes scrunched shut and smiling like she hasn't seen half of the things that shaped her. sometimes, when she's clumsily healed another cut, and presses her lips to the red scar in silent apology. sometimes, when irri realizes there's nowhere she'd rather be. [Chorus:] When, my, time comes around Lay me gently in the cold dark earth No grave can hold my body down I'll crawl home to her
NOT EVEN GOING TO GO INTO THIS BECAUSE IT uPSETS ME That's when my baby found me I was three days on a drunken sin I woke with her walls around me Nothin in her room but an empty crib
and this--this part is true. because after three days of running, three days of no food and no rest, irri is stumbling, slurring her words, falling, and knocking over a cart at the wrong time. they bring her in for inebriation; a moment too soon, the guard captain glances up and sees the wanted poster. after that, the county jail is deemed unsuitable to hold her, and irri crumples, first to the floor and then into sleep.
when she wakes up, there's a cool hand on her forehead--instantly snatched away as her eyes open--and green eyes glaring. kylara has the mouth of a sailor and the bearing of a countess, and the first time irri gets caught in a brawl in the prison yard, all she does is watch with a calculating look; in that first month of being forced into a cell with her, irri would never call them friends.
two years of prison later, they're all that and more.
And I was burnin up a fever I didn't care much how long I lived But I swear I thought I dreamed her She never asked me once about the wrong I did because ky has her own demons; sometimes irri gets close to meeting them, but every time, kylara shies away. in a cell thats too cold on one side and too hot on the other, she never learns why kylara has no family name, or why talk of county anvil makes her seethe, or why she was able to freeze a man from the inside out at the dinner table without batting an eyelash.
in return, kylara never asks why irri never looks at the prison shrines, or why she's desperate for sunshine, or why even the vaguest mention of bruma makes her tense.
its silence, yes, but its a comforting one. [Chorus x2] My baby never fret none About what my hands and my body done If the Lord don't forgive me I'd still have my baby and my babe would have me When I was kissing on my baby And she put her love down soft and sweet In the low lamp light I was free Heaven and hell were words to me
[Chorus x2]
anything irri has done, kylara always seems to have done worse; and yet, irri still finds herself yearning for that cold green safe harbor. before the war and after, they have each other, and most of the time, that is enough. whatever comes after this life is nothing to them--they'll crawl home to each other, and it will be enough.
