I Was Born Already Missing You
Ship: Linnet/Kestrel
Word Count: 1132 words
Summary: Songbirds always miss something, or someone, even if they can never put a name to it. Most never find out what it is.
(reading experience improved by listening to claw machine on repeat)
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Did you know that I woke up with my arm outstretched? I don't know. I guess I expected to be in like... a mummy or vampire pose? Lying on my back, arms crossed over my chest, like I'm ready to buried. Doesn't that just seem more right for being raised from the dead?
It's not like I've asked any other songbirds what pose they were in when they came to. But I don't think everyone was lying on their right side, left arm stretched as far as possible, fingers spread, like they're trying to grab something that's just a little too far to reach... That one felt like a me thing.
I roll around in my sleep a lot, so I guess it could've been that. I don't know how it works, if it was just dead and then awake, or dead and then asleep and then awake? I don't think I'm making any sense.
It just felt important. In my last moments, was I reaching for something? Did I get it?
It gave me a hell of a shoulder ache, and lying down on my right side like that messed my hair clip up. I fucked with it for what felt like forever, trying to get it straight again without any reflection to check.
How did I do that before? Was it always this much of a struggle to keep it on straight?
It's stupid, but I cried for a while. Not because I came back from the dead, but because I couldn't get my hair clip to go on right. Total fit, like... ugly crying for long enough that you forget what even set you off. Frustrated, red faced, and if you can believe it, they don't provide tissues in the space between life and death, so covered in tears.
God, and for the first couple weeks I was up and about? Constant. No warning, just, bam, something happened and now I'm gonna cry for forever. So damn embarrassing, especially when it was never something worth crying over.
Making dinner, seeing something funny, going into a library, trying to sell some of the jewelry I found in a dungeon... There was no logic to it at all. I'd just sit there, knowing I was being ridiculous, until it stopped.
I was bitter all the time. The type of bitter that you dump a pound of sugar in to try and hide the flavor. No one knew what I'd gone through, and that included me! Why bring me back if I still felt like a ghost? Stuck in a cycle of mourning that I couldn't even explain.
I genuinely started to wonder if that's what being a songbird is. Grieving something far away forever.
When I woke up, my right arm was stretched out. I didn't think much of it, though. Who would?
The thing that stood out to me was when I left the tiny room I'd woken up in. I held the door open for a few seconds, like I was waiting for someone else to come out with me.
Of course, there was no one else in that room. Just stones all around me, and a hole in the ceiling that let the light of the full moon shine in. I will say, it was fully morning when I stepped out, no moon in sight. I glanced back in, moonlight, glance out, sunlight.
I don't think I'd be able to find that room again if I tried. If every other songbird's account wasn't so similar, I'd assume I was just dreaming.
I felt... strange when I woke up, and for a while afterwards. Homesick would be the best way to describe it, if I had to pick a word. How a normal person would feel homesick for a home they only lived in when they were very little, I assume.
Fuzzy feelings, vague familiarity missing from your life, but nothing concrete, nothing you can actually work with. You remember the tree in the front yard, because it was the tallest thing you'd ever seen, but everything else frays at the edges. And when you pick at the strands, it feels like you're just leaving yourself with a mess of string.
I think that's how normal people who got to be little feel, at least. In the moments I allow myself to think about that sort of thing.
It's strange, to not have a childhood. The "me" before had one, presumably, but I don't know if you could truly count him as me. Sometimes, I thought about doing something childish, seeing if it would jog anything, but it turns out most childish activities require others.
I doubt it would jog anything then regardless. Surely, I've always been alone, even before I was me. ...Independent, independent, not alone. Alone makes it sound sad.
Sometimes though... I hold the apartment door open a while, I buy sweets that I won't eat without even thinking, I explain what I'm doing out loud, I stare at the ring on my hand. It's like there's a hole, right next to me, but always perfectly in my blind spot.
I miss you, I miss you. I don't know a thing about you, I don't even know if there's a you, but your silhouette, the negative space around you, it's what I picture when the saddest, most childish part of my mind thinks "I want to go home."
But I'm in my apartment, and there's nowhere else to go. And I'm alone.
Turns out, making dinner doesn't make me cry when there's someone making it with me. Maybe I'm just bad at crying in front of other people, maybe I was just being a baby at having to do every step myself...
What are the odds, his favorite type of sweets were the ones I bought by accident, a few weeks back. I guess that worked out nicely, but I think he'd just eat anything sweet.
...He asked if he could fix my hair clip for me. It had fallen out during a fight, and I couldn't get it back on right. God, that goes so much faster if you just have another set of eyes to actually see how it looks! ...Yeah, I let him do it. I didn't even really think about it at the time, but, I'd never let anyone else touch it, would I?
When I walk in now, I say "I'm home." I never thought about it before, but I didn't think of this place as "home" until he moved in. He's joking, saying in an exaggerated tone that he missed me, I was gone for maybe five minutes. My genuine thought is just that I missed him too. I don't say it, but I missed him, I'm home, I'm home...