[ She wilts and he relents. (I give in.) He leans forward, his hands finding her cloak and tugging it back over her slender frame. (And no, he is not fatherly in this; he knows not what to be.) He still sees this as weakness, yes, but it is hers. He offers her the boy cut down on the banks of the Trident, offers her a part of him that had been kept in stasis and locked away for far too long. (Know that I am false, know that I am nothing, and tell me that you love me still. This is the sum of me, the best and the worst and everything in between, the hallways covered in dust and the parts rusty with disuse. I am sorry for the lies, I am sorry there is so little to give.)
This is the one instance in which, stripped of his coat of feathers and the notes of his song, the mockingbird knows not which way to turn. He looks to her for help, he looks to her to want the meager total that he has to give and, to a certain extent, to guide him. ]
Forgive me, I do not know this song.
[ He hardly believes that the words leave his own lips. His voice is small, earnest, and afraid, and there is a pallor to his face that makes him seem almost faint. Almost as soon as he has spoken, he lets go of her, in disbelief still that he has said so much. He turns away once more, unable — at least for the moment — to look at her. ]
I should not have spoken, [ he says, although he seems to know that it is useless to say so. (You cannot take it back.)
( ACTION )
This is the one instance in which, stripped of his coat of feathers and the notes of his song, the mockingbird knows not which way to turn. He looks to her for help, he looks to her to want the meager total that he has to give and, to a certain extent, to guide him. ]
Forgive me, I do not know this song.
[ He hardly believes that the words leave his own lips. His voice is small, earnest, and afraid, and there is a pallor to his face that makes him seem almost faint. Almost as soon as he has spoken, he lets go of her, in disbelief still that he has said so much. He turns away once more, unable — at least for the moment — to look at her. ]
I should not have spoken, [ he says, although he seems to know that it is useless to say so. (You cannot take it back.)
Again: ] Forgive me.