When Rowan finally got home that day, the shell he had been wearing for quite some time shriveled rapidly, falling away in large, curling, pieces. Rowan stretched his grey, splotched wings, and fell, spent from the effort of breaking his bonds. He turned his head, and looked at the scraps around him, and laughed. Those bonds had held him fast, paralyzing him, for a month or so. Even now, his freedom was temporary, as soon as he stepped back into the sun, (which had set for the next four days) those bonds would return, more loosely, but still strong. Rowan dashed his head angrily against the floor. Freed, for now, from his cocoon, Rowan closed his eyes, and his soul flew on it’s grey, splotched wings, and landed lightly in her head as she looked out the window at the passing river, and over, into a foreign world. Feeling Rowan rustle his wings, she shuddered, and another hand lightly touched hers and she turned her head. Rowan saw him as she did, but didn’t know what she thought, as words were exchanged.
He said, “Did you bring the ls?”Rowans stomach turned violently, pulling him back into himself. He rolled onto his side as everything he had stomached that day resurfaced, wracking his frame. When he stopped shaking, he looked dispassionately at his entire day, which lay steaming on the floor beside him. A certain bit of it glared laughingly at him, and Rowan remembered smiling bravely and laughing misleadingly as he had eaten that unsavory morsel which broke his cocoon. He had to run the whole way home, holding pieces of the cocoon against him carefully to keep others from seeing his ugly wings. Something moved in Rowans mind, stirring him from his reverie. He quickly wiped away the hot tears running down his face and angrily fell back, knocking himself unconscious so she couldn’t see, just to spite her. A butterfly flashed in the setting sun as it left Rowans house, and floated back to the place it came from.
“Yes.”
“All right! I can’t wait!” he replied, a little too enthusiastically.
