Re: carnival: sparrow/matt
He had a sharp eye for shadows. She dipped out of them smooth as a skimmer. He had thought to himself, earlier, that there could be someone missing blonde curls and a warm, hollow smile. But it would be just as much that expression he just saw that someone would miss - she might look best like that, brow knitted down, bad omens bringing some substance into an empty place behind her eyes. Then, gone again like a puff of smoke.
"What do you think is coming?" he asked. He didn't want to drag her down into something she was trying to skirt by, but he had to ask, when she seemed so sure. She'd said the same thing before, too, that this would be a legendary winter, long and cold. Winters always felt never ending once they got going, like summer had never existed, memories of it turned pale yellow and without warmth, like pictures.
This would be the first winter he could remember the whole way through. He hadn't thought about that before, and it hung him up for a moment. Soon, he would have a year of unbroken memories. It had almost been that long. Sequential days, routines. Oh, there were gaps. Of course there were. But less, since he'd come to this town, fewer chunks of time he couldn't account for, the kind that left him uneasy and turning up in unlikely spots. He didn't know if it was just that he couldn't afford them, and that knowledge was holding it in check. He didn't like lingering on the thought of it too long. It was easier to be who he was pretending he was. Stave the blank spaces off with the present. This bed, warm and inviting, this girl, the sweet smell in the room, the cold outside leaking in.
"Passable," he said, with a faint smile. He didn't ask her where she'd learned hers. He assumed she'd do him the same favor.