( He hears her, listens. Manners and discipline have reunited in learning to appreciate the weight of words when and as they are spoken — to fill in the spaces of silence like water overcomes a pail. )
You speak of devilry.
( Of demons, of corruption old and hope new, of the many seeping ways in which one power can infiltrate like mould and reside. Extended, his senses are no more than morning light teasing shapes in dawn dark — he feels nothing known, no tempest previously encountered. If there is curse here —
But nature only crackles under rot, heaves beneath destruction. Lessening and wilting need not coincide with traditional talismans, with aged hauntings, with curse work. )
How will land heal?
( But he knows her answer before she need speak it, knows the poison dark on tongue, the slow callous qualities of its thickening, like burn-hot sugar dropped into water — coagulating as pearls. Nothing survives this. )
no subject
You speak of devilry.
( Of demons, of corruption old and hope new, of the many seeping ways in which one power can infiltrate like mould and reside. Extended, his senses are no more than morning light teasing shapes in dawn dark — he feels nothing known, no tempest previously encountered. If there is curse here —
But nature only crackles under rot, heaves beneath destruction. Lessening and wilting need not coincide with traditional talismans, with aged hauntings, with curse work. )
How will land heal?
( But he knows her answer before she need speak it, knows the poison dark on tongue, the slow callous qualities of its thickening, like burn-hot sugar dropped into water — coagulating as pearls. Nothing survives this. )