(and the words will hold you in their loquacious keeping stone to stone the answer told you is that stone is there to show you how the world did its weeping)
No corridor should slope so steeply uphill as this one, but he climbs it without thinking twice about whether this is right or wrong, focused desperately on what's ahead. There's someone behind him, but it changes, and he doesn't want to look back and see. If he looks, he falls.
He stares at her, eyes hard and untrusting, but reaches forward automatically. He needs to move, and any help, no matter how suspicious, is needed.
The scar on his face is larger, in his dreams, covering his entire left cheek, still sore and wrinkled, threatening to obscure his sight. Zuko grits his teeth and keeps climbing.
She understands without knowing, and understanding, tugs on his hand to help him climb higher, finding her footing with ease and supporting him where he might fall.
No, because she's there, and she has his hand and she's pulling him up and up and pushing on the landscape that surrounds them, demanding safety, light, warmth-- comfort--
Home.
It's not the kind of demand that Intuition is sure will be answered, but she cannot fail to try.
Zuko frowns, confused, dreamscape flickering at the twin pressures of Intuition's influence and Zuko's subconscious.
The ground flattens, and he stands warily, hair and clothing more formal than before as his skin heals smoothly over at the overwhelming feeling of safety.
It's like-
(Mother?)
He's afraid it will change again, any moment, and he squeezes the rainbow girl's hand tightly.
Zuko stiffens in shock, and the world shivers in response - people don't touch him, apart from Mai, and she's gone; and people he fights, and they don't hug him - before his incomprehension melts into blankness and he reaches up to accept the embrace, hands clenching at her back, tired of the loneliness.
Zuko doesn't, either. Privately, he's afraid-sure she doesn't. She'll just go back to being his sister's minion, and and Ty Lee's partner in crime. She never really needed him, and he...
He doesn't know.
He just knows that now he misses her.
He closes his eyes, and the dreamworld doesn't vanish, but it softens, warmer and dimmer light filling his mind more gently than the harsh chill of before.
There's no way for her to reach through the unknown between worlds and reassure him that he's more to his friends than he thinks.
But she can reassure nonetheless, in the way quiet flickers of coloured light dance across her skin, in the way she leans against him slightly as she holds him in her arms.
He will be needed, here. If there is no place for him then she will find one.
No corridor should slope so steeply uphill as this one, but he climbs it without thinking twice about whether this is right or wrong, focused desperately on what's ahead. There's someone behind him, but it changes, and he doesn't want to look back and see. If he looks, he falls.
It's as simple as that.
Reply
Reply
The scar on his face is larger, in his dreams, covering his entire left cheek, still sore and wrinkled, threatening to obscure his sight. Zuko grits his teeth and keeps climbing.
Reply
So is her hand, in a way.
She understands without knowing, and understanding, tugs on his hand to help him climb higher, finding her footing with ease and supporting him where he might fall.
Reply
The presence below flickers, agitated, and the ground under Zuko's fingers slips like wet ice-
-will make sure your destiny ends, right there. Permanently.-
Reply
No, because she's there, and she has his hand and she's pulling him up and up and pushing on the landscape that surrounds them, demanding safety, light, warmth-- comfort--
Home.
It's not the kind of demand that Intuition is sure will be answered, but she cannot fail to try.
Reply
The ground flattens, and he stands warily, hair and clothing more formal than before as his skin heals smoothly over at the overwhelming feeling of safety.
It's like-
(Mother?)
He's afraid it will change again, any moment, and he squeezes the rainbow girl's hand tightly.
Reply
But the way her hand (familiar, unfamiliar) grasps his is the same: protective, nurturing.
This is how Intuition sees the human race, sometimes.
As her children.
How, then, can she fail to give him a hug?
(Answer: She can't.)
Reply
(Oh, Mai.
I'm sorry.
I miss you.)
Reply
That doesn't stop her rainbow arms from wrapping around him, or her rainbow cheek from resting on his shoulder, soft and gentle and kind.
Reply
He doesn't know.
He just knows that now he misses her.
He closes his eyes, and the dreamworld doesn't vanish, but it softens, warmer and dimmer light filling his mind more gently than the harsh chill of before.
Reply
But she can reassure nonetheless, in the way quiet flickers of coloured light dance across her skin, in the way she leans against him slightly as she holds him in her arms.
He will be needed, here. If there is no place for him then she will find one.
Reply
Leave a comment