(no subject)
Her mother was never there on the nights of the lightning, and no matter how much she cried Cid would neither produce her nor sing Rikku the lullabies; he’d just distractedly turn out the lights, and she’d cry herself to sleep quietly so Brother next door wouldn’t hear.
--
At the core she is lightning, crackling upward and outward. Her fingers are more energy than flesh, and it makes it so easy to climb up the towers toward the sky, tail and hands and feet grasping and curling. She wants, more than anything, to be blue, to burn like a river, to lengthen and spiral and end in a burst of light and sound. She cannot stop moving, cannot stop seeking ground, air, metal, each more appealing than the others in an infinite variety of ways. She wishes there were stars, but doesn’t miss the sand in her teeth.
They have never had rain before.
--
The moment her mother died, she understood, felt it curl into her four year old belly like a new organ, like hunger. She threw up for days, her father pale and resigned on the other side of the toilet. He called it a secret, and she believed him. She didn’t even tell Gippal, though she knew he noticed the way her hand constantly rested on her stomach, like it was aching. After a few months, it got used to her.
She kept waiting for it to talk, and it never did.
--
She is able to release the energy much more quickly here; the storm is more powerful, more changeable, and when her feet and palms finally strike the ground, when her spine straightens and...it... finally curls up to sleep, she is as always both relieved and heartbroken. Rin has left the door open, as promised. A towel and a steaming mug of tea are waiting just inside. It is desert jasmine crumbled into the cup, the petals sticking to her lips as she sips and dries and hopes no one will smell the sulfur.
--
At the core she is lightning, crackling upward and outward. Her fingers are more energy than flesh, and it makes it so easy to climb up the towers toward the sky, tail and hands and feet grasping and curling. She wants, more than anything, to be blue, to burn like a river, to lengthen and spiral and end in a burst of light and sound. She cannot stop moving, cannot stop seeking ground, air, metal, each more appealing than the others in an infinite variety of ways. She wishes there were stars, but doesn’t miss the sand in her teeth.
They have never had rain before.
--
The moment her mother died, she understood, felt it curl into her four year old belly like a new organ, like hunger. She threw up for days, her father pale and resigned on the other side of the toilet. He called it a secret, and she believed him. She didn’t even tell Gippal, though she knew he noticed the way her hand constantly rested on her stomach, like it was aching. After a few months, it got used to her.
She kept waiting for it to talk, and it never did.
--
She is able to release the energy much more quickly here; the storm is more powerful, more changeable, and when her feet and palms finally strike the ground, when her spine straightens and...it... finally curls up to sleep, she is as always both relieved and heartbroken. Rin has left the door open, as promised. A towel and a steaming mug of tea are waiting just inside. It is desert jasmine crumbled into the cup, the petals sticking to her lips as she sips and dries and hopes no one will smell the sulfur.