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rainbowfic2025-06-26 01:21 am
verylongfarewell) wrote in rainbowfic2025-06-26 01:21 am
jasper #12; calcite #8 | leap of faith; leap of faith
Name: Leap of Faith
Story: Leap of Faith
Colors: Calcite (#8, storm/calm) + jasper (#12, divide and conquer)
Supplies and Styles: Silhouette, life drawing
Word Count: ~800
Rating: Teenage
Warnings: Mention of violence and maiming, implied sexual content
____________________
LEAP OF FAITH
”Leap,” Maika whispers, her light voice cutting through the dusk. Leap turns her head slowly, languidly, not truly intent on moving at all, her body feeling too slow and uncooperative. A dangerous state to be in for long. Around Maika’s waist, her arm tightens, almost by its own accord. Instinctually. Protectively.
“What is it?” she replies. The Common Language sounds rough and untrained to her own ears, although she knows for a fact, she speaks it just fine.
It is how everything else feels so frail and delicate in comparison.
“In our tongue,” Maika continues after a long moment of hesitation in which Leap automatically assumes, the other girl is keeping things from her, “there’s an expression…” And the next couple of words come out as a breath against the side of Leap’s neck, close to her ear. They don’t really sound like words, more like the buzzing of insects around your head as you move through the meadows, but Leap gets the general sense of speech, if not the meaning. Without saying anything in response, she waits for Maika to elaborate.
The girl carries on after another long moment, more time and more things kept to herself, as her kind is so keen on doing, her voice soft, “it means a leap of faith.”
“So?” Leap inquires, her tone harder than she intended, the slight confusion adding edges to her. She isn’t sure where Maika is going with this, and she isn’t sure she likes the shroud of the shadows either.
Nightfall is a vulnerable time of day. Life in its most exposed stage.
“Among Butterflies, it’s something we say about our first flight,” Maika insists, not backing down, but in a bright and gentle way, as Leap has come to know her. Her arm tightens more at this glimpse of recognition, like she’s afraid of letting go now, as she listens. “No one can be sure, our wings are ready and will hold. We have to take the tumble to find out. That’s the leap of faith.”
Licking her lips that still taste of the other girl, Leap shifts nervously. It is her turn to take her time and to withhold a hundred things that she could say but doesn’t. Two day turns ago, she would have been envious of Maika’s wings, bitter that there were people in this world allowed to have such advantages.
At this point, a physical familiarity has taken envy’s place. Maika has taught her flight, with or without wings. She would be no closer to the sky, even if she pinned the princess down now and tore them right off her back.
The thought makes her feel queasy.
“You aren’t afraid of falling?” she finally asks in return.
The smile that forms on Maika’s lips is an almost audible gesture. “That’s what faith is about, Leap. It doesn’t matter if we fly or if we fall, what matters is that we made the attempt.”
Thinking for a long time about how close to the Butterfly Capital they are now, because she herself chose the Southern Terrains as her fixed destination, she chose to bring the princess home, rather than to the Spider Camps in the North, with everything she could bring her people of hope and symbolic victory, just by taking this one little Butterfly to them… Leap turns that phrase over again and again in her head, the Common Language making it sound foreign. That we made the attempt.
She doesn’t want to run forever. She wants to, at some point, settle down and stay, not live out of a tent, always on the road.
If she keeps going north, that is the only outcome she can see.
Leap sighs, turning onto her side towards Maika, so that they come face to face. Maika reaches for her, both arms, pulling her in against her front. It’s close and comfortable. Soft. Who knows how the Elder Queen will welcome her. If she will.
“If we fall,” she finally murmurs, forehead pressing in just above Maika’s breasts. Her words are slightly muffled, the Common Language like the final barrier between them, rather than what ties them together. “I’m blaming you. You’re the one who should be able to do better, with those huge wings of yours.”
Maika laughs. It sounds like the chime of little bells. “Have faith in us,” she answers.
To think Leap originally caught her with every intention of cutting them off. Claiming them. Her hands tighten on the other girl’s hips. One day she hopes Maika will forgive her. In the same way that Leap hopes, one day her own people will, too.
For turning down another path.
For falling on the way.
Story: Leap of Faith
Colors: Calcite (#8, storm/calm) + jasper (#12, divide and conquer)
Supplies and Styles: Silhouette, life drawing
Word Count: ~800
Rating: Teenage
Warnings: Mention of violence and maiming, implied sexual content
____________________
”Leap,” Maika whispers, her light voice cutting through the dusk. Leap turns her head slowly, languidly, not truly intent on moving at all, her body feeling too slow and uncooperative. A dangerous state to be in for long. Around Maika’s waist, her arm tightens, almost by its own accord. Instinctually. Protectively.
“What is it?” she replies. The Common Language sounds rough and untrained to her own ears, although she knows for a fact, she speaks it just fine.
It is how everything else feels so frail and delicate in comparison.
“In our tongue,” Maika continues after a long moment of hesitation in which Leap automatically assumes, the other girl is keeping things from her, “there’s an expression…” And the next couple of words come out as a breath against the side of Leap’s neck, close to her ear. They don’t really sound like words, more like the buzzing of insects around your head as you move through the meadows, but Leap gets the general sense of speech, if not the meaning. Without saying anything in response, she waits for Maika to elaborate.
The girl carries on after another long moment, more time and more things kept to herself, as her kind is so keen on doing, her voice soft, “it means a leap of faith.”
“So?” Leap inquires, her tone harder than she intended, the slight confusion adding edges to her. She isn’t sure where Maika is going with this, and she isn’t sure she likes the shroud of the shadows either.
Nightfall is a vulnerable time of day. Life in its most exposed stage.
“Among Butterflies, it’s something we say about our first flight,” Maika insists, not backing down, but in a bright and gentle way, as Leap has come to know her. Her arm tightens more at this glimpse of recognition, like she’s afraid of letting go now, as she listens. “No one can be sure, our wings are ready and will hold. We have to take the tumble to find out. That’s the leap of faith.”
Licking her lips that still taste of the other girl, Leap shifts nervously. It is her turn to take her time and to withhold a hundred things that she could say but doesn’t. Two day turns ago, she would have been envious of Maika’s wings, bitter that there were people in this world allowed to have such advantages.
At this point, a physical familiarity has taken envy’s place. Maika has taught her flight, with or without wings. She would be no closer to the sky, even if she pinned the princess down now and tore them right off her back.
The thought makes her feel queasy.
“You aren’t afraid of falling?” she finally asks in return.
The smile that forms on Maika’s lips is an almost audible gesture. “That’s what faith is about, Leap. It doesn’t matter if we fly or if we fall, what matters is that we made the attempt.”
Thinking for a long time about how close to the Butterfly Capital they are now, because she herself chose the Southern Terrains as her fixed destination, she chose to bring the princess home, rather than to the Spider Camps in the North, with everything she could bring her people of hope and symbolic victory, just by taking this one little Butterfly to them… Leap turns that phrase over again and again in her head, the Common Language making it sound foreign. That we made the attempt.
She doesn’t want to run forever. She wants to, at some point, settle down and stay, not live out of a tent, always on the road.
If she keeps going north, that is the only outcome she can see.
Leap sighs, turning onto her side towards Maika, so that they come face to face. Maika reaches for her, both arms, pulling her in against her front. It’s close and comfortable. Soft. Who knows how the Elder Queen will welcome her. If she will.
“If we fall,” she finally murmurs, forehead pressing in just above Maika’s breasts. Her words are slightly muffled, the Common Language like the final barrier between them, rather than what ties them together. “I’m blaming you. You’re the one who should be able to do better, with those huge wings of yours.”
Maika laughs. It sounds like the chime of little bells. “Have faith in us,” she answers.
To think Leap originally caught her with every intention of cutting them off. Claiming them. Her hands tighten on the other girl’s hips. One day she hopes Maika will forgive her. In the same way that Leap hopes, one day her own people will, too.
For turning down another path.
For falling on the way.