Page 2 of Sunder

And if she turned her head so she could look over to the streets below, then that wasn’t so bad, was it? She liked to watch the couples as they ducked into the shops Orma was rarely allowed to frequent. She could look, but Mama would remind her they had help who were paid handsomely to do the shopping, and she could have those very same treats in the comfort of their own parlour.

Which was true.

But wasn’t quite the same as picking out a treat for herself. Of smiling at the baker and thanking them directly.

Maybe she shouldn’t want those sorts of things, but she did.

The wall was too wide for her to swing her legs about, so she fluttered her wings instead. The day was warm, the breeze gentle. It should have been nice, if not for the lump still settled in her throat, the one that said not everything was as it should be.

She should go say sorry. To the girl. To the boy, too.

She wished Lucian was there to play with. Family was easier, even if he was a little older and also was a boy, and he’d started to think he was much too grown up to play with his mother’s sister’s girl.

In a moment. Then she’d set things right.

Unless... unless she’d only make things worse, and they’d shove her again, and she’d feel even worse than she did now.

She rubbed at her nose. Flexed her fingers and watched with a sad sort of marvel at how the sun shimmered against the threads of her own colour. White in places. Silver and gold in others. That stretched and pulled in ways that it hadn’t before, almost...

She frowned. Reached out.

Watched as the thread stretched further. Uncoiling and spiralling, so quick that she felt a moment’s panic that if she did not hurry, it would carry on without her.

She forgot her mother’s instructions.

Forgot about feet in the courtyard and apologies that needed to be made.

She made a graceless sort of lurch off the courtyard wall, reaching out as if she could touch the strands as she followed, despite the years of experience that told her that her fingertips would only meet. There was nothing solid, nothing more than light and the promise of a gift born into their very blood, their very nature.

Her feet met cobbles, but her wings kept her slightly alight, her toes skimming across stones as she followed. She almost laughed, as the light twirled, shivered. Dancing with her as she tried to mimic the pattern. Keeping in time, the music in her head borrowed from the winter festival. It did not matter that the day was warm, that she’d never flown the complicated manoeuvres of the skyward dancers. In her mind it was perfect, a swirl of the fabric of her skirts, the twinkle of a network of threads that was leading her onward.

Off to her partner.

The one that would dance with her, would laugh with her, would certainly not shove her away and say her wings were toodull, and she was silly for caring about bonds when she did not even have her adult feathers yet.

It wasn’t like that. Honest.

She just... liked the idea of a friend she’d get to keep. One that wouldn’t be afraid of what she could see. Who was patient and...

Hers.

Perhaps that was selfish, and she supposed she’d have a talk about that soon with Mama once she told her about...

She stopped.

Paled.

Her heels met the cobbles because she was certainly not in the courtyard, and her mother was patient, but there were limits when Orma put herself in danger.

When she got caught up in her tangled threads rather than remembering to obey.

She wrung her hands, frightened and uncertain of what she should do. Everything told her to move along. To follow what she’d begun. That it would be all right, that this was her gift, and she was using it correctly...

She turned her head back toward the thread. That no longer stretched and urged, but... settled.

On... someone.

Her someone?

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