The Academy: in dusk and summer; Marshall

I will leave in the hills a bit of myself--
The heat of my eyes which saw them bloom;
And cicadas, nesting on thorny branches,
Will sing out the shrill cry of my desire.
- Anna de Noailles
She has developed a bad habit of reacting violently to the strange and the unknown. It was a coping mechanism - a secret defense that gave her reason to instinctively flee and consider later the ramifications of her flight and the cause behind it. Acacia; lacking an ill bone in her body though if harm befell a select few close to her, she could surely move with intent to harm then; could not help her natural tendency towards violent fits of surprise and fear. There were things that had stolen the sweetness from her, tapped the tree and drained of all its sap until there was nothing left but a strange, hollow-ringing emptiness within her. She could not help it and never offered excuses or explanations - let them think what they would, because she told herself she didn’t care - not for them, not with them, only with…

But his smile disarms her, makes her forget her train of thought, and she finds herself smiling back at him, shyly so at first though her smile never grows beyond the shy reaches of her mouth and it certainly never meets her eyes. They shared a breath and learned a little about one another through scent and scent alone; this further calmed her and she was the one to bridge the gap between their noses, to touch his lightly than pull away as if to consider the consequences of her initiating touch and to consider whether she would refute his touch now or welcome it. She had no answer to that question though it seemed to linger, would she be kinder to him now - could she be kinder to him now?

Acacia thought so but didn’t know so but she suddenly laughs, a sound refreshingly young and sweet and impossibly high and clear. If bluebells could laugh in mountain glens then her laughter would be as gay and blue as those bluebells. “Then it is a wise teacher that can still learn a lesson from the student they are supposed to teach.” and she feels much more at ease with him now, even ventures a foot closer to show that she does, in some strange aspect, trust him now.