Post by Annasiel on May 6, 2022 1:02:19 GMT
The nixie considered his reply, then nodded vigorously.
"I'm thinkin' you're right. I wouldn' much like to be a fish. They're nice and all, but awful dumb, and prone to bein' eaten." She grinned a sharp grin. "Eat
a lot of fish, in my day. Taste as good as they look."
At mention of success, she paused. The water crested around them, their movements no longer a part of it, now standing still and firm against it, foam spiraling in a v-like shape from where their bodies rested in the waves.
"Dunno what that'd be, to me."
She looked genuinely uneasy from the thought, as if considering any change from her present state something worrisome. She wasn't some new creek, winding itself along a shallow bed, prone to shift position as the banks collapsed or dry up in a heatwave's sun. She was an old river, its path long-engraved in the bedrock, flowing from open water to open water without an end in sight. To be as she was, forever more, unerring, unyielding.
She supposed - success would be to outlive the city. That would be a story in and of itself, would it not? An underdog tale that spanned centuries. But - the story wouldn't have any twists and turns, wouldn't have the special spark that made the lives of mortals so interesting, just years and years of waiting. And then what? Then she'd be alone. Alone, the river won, but no more important than a fish. Might as well be eaten, then. No point in anything else. There could be other successes, of course, but it was hard to consider them, hard to conceive them.
"If I find it. I'll tell you. And you'll tell me yours. Cause a story means nothin' without an ear to hear it."
She looked up at him now, as if waiting for an answer to a question she hadn't asked.
"I'm thinkin' you're right. I wouldn' much like to be a fish. They're nice and all, but awful dumb, and prone to bein' eaten." She grinned a sharp grin. "Eat
a lot of fish, in my day. Taste as good as they look."
At mention of success, she paused. The water crested around them, their movements no longer a part of it, now standing still and firm against it, foam spiraling in a v-like shape from where their bodies rested in the waves.
"Dunno what that'd be, to me."
She looked genuinely uneasy from the thought, as if considering any change from her present state something worrisome. She wasn't some new creek, winding itself along a shallow bed, prone to shift position as the banks collapsed or dry up in a heatwave's sun. She was an old river, its path long-engraved in the bedrock, flowing from open water to open water without an end in sight. To be as she was, forever more, unerring, unyielding.
She supposed - success would be to outlive the city. That would be a story in and of itself, would it not? An underdog tale that spanned centuries. But - the story wouldn't have any twists and turns, wouldn't have the special spark that made the lives of mortals so interesting, just years and years of waiting. And then what? Then she'd be alone. Alone, the river won, but no more important than a fish. Might as well be eaten, then. No point in anything else. There could be other successes, of course, but it was hard to consider them, hard to conceive them.
"If I find it. I'll tell you. And you'll tell me yours. Cause a story means nothin' without an ear to hear it."
She looked up at him now, as if waiting for an answer to a question she hadn't asked.
