It's echoed as her eyes meet his. Fear of her own, horror and guilt to have been caught so watching what she wasn't meant to, what wasn't hers. Say something. Apologize. Turn and leave.
Breathe, little bird. One, two. In the nose, out the mouth. She can almost hear Emile.
She can hear Emile.
From the swirl of mist left from the young Byerly's exit, a quickly striding Alexandrie. Young, beautiful, wearing that dress, her hair piled high on her head that way, with those feathers, first as perfect as a doll and then falling apart with each step as if her composure were being stripped off and thrown to the ground like gloves.
“Non,” says now-Alexandrie, the first sound she's uttered, her hands flying to cover her mouth under widened eyes that flick back and forth between the still unaddressed Byerly and her younger self. “Pas ça, pas ici."
That Alexandrie stumbles forward with a quiet choke and catches herself on the seat of a chair, holding herself above it with locked trembling arms before she allows them to collapse in the next breath and fall—boneless, graceless—into a heap that quickly shatters into an almost-echo of the sobs of his past. And following after, like a quiet guardian angel, Emile.
no subject
Breathe, little bird. One, two. In the nose, out the mouth. She can almost hear Emile.
She can hear Emile.
From the swirl of mist left from the young Byerly's exit, a quickly striding Alexandrie. Young, beautiful, wearing that dress, her hair piled high on her head that way, with those feathers, first as perfect as a doll and then falling apart with each step as if her composure were being stripped off and thrown to the ground like gloves.
“Non,” says now-Alexandrie, the first sound she's uttered, her hands flying to cover her mouth under widened eyes that flick back and forth between the still unaddressed Byerly and her younger self. “Pas ça, pas ici."
That Alexandrie stumbles forward with a quiet choke and catches herself on the seat of a chair, holding herself above it with locked trembling arms before she allows them to collapse in the next breath and fall—boneless, graceless—into a heap that quickly shatters into an almost-echo of the sobs of his past. And following after, like a quiet guardian angel, Emile.