SONGS OF OURSELVES

❦ paradox

lost my grip and my vision gone dull

i swing my hip like a dancer gone numb

i saw your shadow

saw the skeleton run

now something's missing from my memory of

you

❧ little dragon, "crystalfilm"

Sunkanmi didn't walk.

She marched.

In deliberate steps with her arms bowed out. Lumbering like a bear awakened from a deep slumber.

Xosa thought she might stop to rest at sunset, as any sane mortal would do, but after mile nine it appeared the Heretic Commander had no intention of slowing down until she kicked down Laquheia's door herself.

(she'll kill us at this rate.)

"Ready to take a break, dear Commander? Surely we've covered enough ground for today."

"No."

(better yet, she'll collapse from exhaustion with my arm still attached.)

Sunkanmi was no stranger to the wilderness. If anything, she appeared perfectly at home in the tall grasslands looming before them. Tall grasslands that, if Xosa was being honest, promised nothing but ticks, bandits, and a handful of trouble.

Even Xosa, eternal force of nature that he was, shied away from this level of exposure whenever possible.

(which is far better than a beast like me deserves, but oh well.)

He tried appealing to her sensibility again, but this time with feeling.

"Not to state the obvious. Not to insult your massive intelligence. But, uh - it's getting dark."

"I hardly see how that would be a problem for you and your ilk."

"Aha!" Xosa clung to the scraps of conversation she threw at him like a drowning man to driftwood. "That's a popular misconception, my dear Commander. Gods can't see in the dark any better than humans can. We're just born to handle it better. We don't fear the dark because we created darkness itself."

"And yet, despite these innate advantages, you whine and complain more than a toddler. A fascinating paradox."

Her voice crunched against his ears like sea glass and conch shells. She enjoyed being listened to. Or, rather, she simply expected it from him.

His nose tingled with her unique scent, detecting undercurrents of mango and oxtails simmering on the stove. It was times like these when Xosa wished his godly senses weren't so, well, sensitive.

Maybe then he wouldn't notice the curious way Sunkanmi's hair lifted in the humid breeze.

Or what leg she favored in her stride after countless injuries.