Re: Wren + Ana: woods
"I know it," Wren said of the French. It was not an auspicious explanation. It revealed little, and it revealed all, but it said nothing all the same, that confession. She could've learned it at her maman's knee, or she could've learned it in school, or she could've learned it on the lips of a lover. Everything was possible, and nothing had been narrowed by learning her name.
Almost nothing. There was a shadow, a voice remembered in the dark, a name to go with it, and she could trace that name upon her own skin with fingers. Something, but almost nothing, and she smiled at this strange woman in the woods. Strange was Wren's preference, and normalcy didn't sit well upon her soft shoulders. The normal path, that was not these woods, and it was not these towns. She'd passed through normal places, and she'd breathed them in deep and found them wanting. Here, she felt roots growing and twining round her ankles, holding her fast and firm, and so here she remained.
"I've been everywhere," she said, and it was evasive truth. She had been many everywheres, but she didn't know the true answer to the woman's question. Where had she begun? And she didn't know that. But she did move forward and closer, and she held out a hand that was soft and pale, gloveless and elegant in a way that spoke of earth and nature. "I'm-" Here, she paused, "-Wren."
It felt oddly right, like her tongue was made for the way the letters rolled. "I'm not sure everyone is good at making things, even with time, but that's okay. Not everyone is the same, and that's good. We'd be really, really boring if we were all the same."