Re: lake, by the shore
She didn't stretch out beside him. She knew the stars' songs. She knew what their hum felt like in her soul, and she didn't need to see them in order to appreciate their beauty. She'd lived in the city for a while, and the stars were quiet there. The lights were loud and they sang songs that overlapped, each melody different from the next, but the stars were eclipsed by people trying to grab them with buildings made like fingers. Here the stars were loud, but she didn't need to look. She watched his face instead. "I like truth also. Lies always hurt, and they usually come out in the end. Lying is no way to live." There was sentiment in the silt of words heavy like the ground layer of the lake. The words had weight.
"All people can be nice. All people can not be nice. We're what we are because we have both inside each of us, and we make choices that aren't always easy ones." She thought he would like that. It wasn't fate. It didn't contradict her view of fate, but she held that close to her heart and shushed it like she shushed the bells on the ship that was now out of sight.
She didn't know how to explain feeling better. The madness caught her tongue and twisted it into ties that wouldn't let her voice it properly. "No. Regrets are important. I meant your pain. Do you want me to make your pain better?" She leaned at the waist. Her torso was long and flat, the skin of her arms pale enough to seemingly glow under the moonlight. She lifted long fingers to touch his cheek. There was a warmth that came with that approaching touch, and it was a tangible warmth. Even from a distance, it was soothing. She moved those fingers closer, and whether she touched him or not was something she didn't grasp. Only he knew, because she was immediately distracted. She lifted her head. There was no sound that carried to the edge of the lake, but her eyes widened as if she heard something. For the first time all evening, the girl looked mad. She ticked her head to the side, seeking a sound and not finding what she sought. She stood on boots that squelched beneath a skirt that hung low at her lips and clung to narrow hipbones and over soft and white belly.
She crouched a moment, but it was a fast thing, a thing of a moment, a thing frenetic with the need to move. The ship was coming. She mouthed the words, but they were silent on pink lips. Something was wrong. behind her the ship came back into sight. It dropped anchor and it waited, and the girl looked at the redwine man. "I must go," she told him. "You don't need to change for people. People who love you will love you as you are." It seemed like the correct sentiment, and then the girl steeped over him, dripping along his belly, and she began the walk toward the disturbance.