Blacktail Deer Plateau the swelling of broken violins

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armand grit his teeth but sprang open the closed steel trap of his mind to admit her words into its teeth. it was true, he supposed -- he was the bird of which she spoke, grasping something he himself did not fully comprehend. the alacrity of his acceptance alarmed the pathetic wastrel — armand found himself building a veritable wall of recalcitrance against the woman, lest her soft eyes behold that she had slipped her tongue beneath his skin and found him wanting. 
but even as the words crept like thorns to his tongue, to be hurled into the yielding delicate flesh, armand felt them wilting between his teeth. why fight against the truth he knew to be his lot? "i fear you do not understand how much pain is married to me, and i to it," the boy whispered mournfully, and now he felt an etching of sorrow for how he had treated her moment before. it was with brimming eyes that he looked to the woman again. "i have lost my way, and i do not seek to find it again, and it smites me when i meet another who has their feet firmly planted on the path i once wished to walk."
armand inhaled deeply, wanting suddenly to be taken into her arms, where he might write his apology upon the linen-fine countenance of her face, the gentle train of her ashen veil; where he might seek to mend the crevasse he himself had torn.[/tr][/td][/table]