[ The boy quails under the howl that comes of Alecto, shivering as a mast. The other takes little heed of this. There are whales whose mouths trail tentacles surfacing a hundred leagues from here. There are coral singing in sheets of silver bubbles on the coast of an island where no human foot has trod in centuries. There is a leviathan in this tower. ]
Mine.
[ Sharkskin fingers card into his curling hair, cold and sharp. She gathers them in her palm and holds them lightly there. ]
I am in his salt.
[ In this tongue, she speaks without the word-thieving, and the instrument must strain to accept her speech, vast and wild and singing. Brackwater spills from his mouth for her, the mingling tide of the space between the one and the other. ]
You do not ask as salt does. You ask as thin waters. You are not iron. You inhabit.
cw: blood, possession
Mine.
[ Sharkskin fingers card into his curling hair, cold and sharp. She gathers them in her palm and holds them lightly there. ]
I am in his salt.
[ In this tongue, she speaks without the word-thieving, and the instrument must strain to accept her speech, vast and wild and singing. Brackwater spills from his mouth for her, the mingling tide of the space between the one and the other. ]
You do not ask as salt does. You ask as thin waters. You are not iron. You inhabit.