The rain was a steady, rhythmic curtain against the slate tiles, muffling the sounds of the city into a perpetual, wet sigh. We sat on the lip of the parapet, the stone cold even through the thick wool of the cushion. Below us, the cobbled street was a slick mirror reflecting the bruised twilight. "It's the suddenness," I finally rasped, the sound catching in my throat like grit. "The way they simply... materialize. As if the air itself curdles into feathers." The therapist, a woman whose tweed jacket seemed perpetually damp, made a note on her pad. I stared out across the cathedral roofline, tracing the moss growth in the mortar joints. "They are so unremarkable. So dense with nothing. And yet, they command such a panicked reaction from me." A sudden, sharp coo, close enough to vibrate the gargoyle's own stone chest. I flinched, my ancient, petrified wings twitching. I didn't look. I just pressed my weight deeper into the cold stone, waiting for the inevitable, fluttering, grey assault.
damp · uneasy