[Hi Mira. Iris doesn't recognise her, as it happens, but she's struck by the girl's understatedly silken movement, by the harmonics of her voice, and she smiles back, joyfully sincere even without recognition.]
'Ello, sweetheart. I think I'm probably Iris. I'm not entirely sure, at the moment.
[She grew up in a desert. Indoors, everything is tall and grey and faceless; outside, dusty scrub and the skeletons of ancient plants for a longer distance than the girl can walk; she knows, because she's tried. There are no locks and no walls, but it's as sure a prison as any oubliette.
The only escape to be found is inwards, to the bright soft forests in her mind. She tells herself stories as she kicks her dusty feet on the desiccated garden wall, full of coiled, muscular dragons and hot-eyed golden bears and jewelled birds whose songs are coded magic spells. Every time the girl opens a door in the grey house, she holds her breath in case this time the forest will be on the other side. It never is.]
no subject
'Ello, sweetheart. I think I'm probably Iris. I'm not entirely sure, at the moment.
[She grew up in a desert. Indoors, everything is tall and grey and faceless; outside, dusty scrub and the skeletons of ancient plants for a longer distance than the girl can walk; she knows, because she's tried. There are no locks and no walls, but it's as sure a prison as any oubliette.
The only escape to be found is inwards, to the bright soft forests in her mind. She tells herself stories as she kicks her dusty feet on the desiccated garden wall, full of coiled, muscular dragons and hot-eyed golden bears and jewelled birds whose songs are coded magic spells. Every time the girl opens a door in the grey house, she holds her breath in case this time the forest will be on the other side. It never is.]