IVORY | Carl Grimes

twenty-eight - candor ;

i don't want to hear of it again.

- deanna

saskia groaned as the scribbled words from the paper in front of her connected into her brain. she crumpled up the message and stuffed it in her back pocket, trekking up the stairs in the house she had creeped back into minutes before and minding the creaky step she had forgotten to skip. beth was still asleep in their room following a long shift in the infirmary when saskia entered and after quietly changing, exited and closed the front door behind her with a distinct yet manageable thud.

saskia's added neglect to her surroundings was apparent as her foot's crunching of the leaves beneath her feet forced a jump in her heartbeat, the heartstrings the rope in which it turned over. she shook her hands out at her sides, curling her toes inside of her worn boots. saskia felt as though the heavy sound of a underlying bass was screaming at her as she walked down the lonely path, unconsciously controlling her heartbeat as the noise level grew infinitely around her.

saskia saw tara from across the street and forced a smile that she hoped tara could never find to be different from the rest. she cleared both her throat and her mind as she took the worn steps two at a time, watching the cracks mingle together. her unconscious reluctance tied a noose around her ankles, willing her to stop abruptly in place.

focusing on her breathing with her fingers stowed away in her back pockets, saskia's nervous system worked in doubt. her mind was growing as tired as her legs as she trudged on. beth's absence from the infirmary signified sawyer's discharge in the early morning.

finding him on the steps of the building in what appeared to be contemplative thought, saskia approached cautiously, dropping the scowl from her face. it fell behind her as she materialized a straight face from thin air. having drifted off, saskia

"i was on a watch with rosita," sawyer began intuitively, locking his gaze on the falling leaves outdoors, "out of the corner of my eye i saw an arrow on fire shot into the sky. we ran down the steps and into the middle of town when i saw the first one."

saskia had found sawyer sitting idly on the steps outside of the house later in the afternoon. having asked for further details of the wolves' attack on alexandria as carl was not apt to digress, saskia waited patiently for her older brother to open up. he was, after all, the most brilliant storyteller she had ever come to admire. from tales of dragons and princesses at bedtime when she was six to recounts of their childhood on the road before terminus, he was constant.