Light filtered through the sky's window, broken by clouds into patches, patches that created a makeshift quilt under which the two figures reposed peacefully.
Sleeping soundly, the city rolled over. The river stirred under his draped arm, her own tingling with numbness as her circulation returned. She breathed deeply of the cool morning air and sighed. Stretching lightly, she looked over the city's peaceful features. He cracked an eyelid and groaned, rolling over again. She reached over, turning him back toward her, and he smiled warmly.
"Ugh, you're freezing!" the city said. He reached down and pulled an extra blanket of fog over the river. She slid below it thankfully.
The air above them was cool, but the bedrock below was warm. It was always warm, down there. It doesn't fluctuate, oscillate, alternate, undulate, or vibrate. It...gravitates. Down to the core.
Which made it that much harder for the city to get up. He sat up and swung his feet out over the streets, dangling them there. He had a job to do. He made everything run. He made everything walk. He made everything swerve erratically into a lamppost. His movements, his thoughts, dictated the day's course. He was busy. The morning beginning, the city started to stand up when the river, seeing his movement, protested, latching her arms around his waist. He turned around to look at her, laughing lightly.
She looked back at him with shining eyes, broad smile crinkling her features. The city could feel the trickle of its streets begin to flow as the day began. It pulled at him, beckoning him to come alive. It started in his feet and reverberated through his bones, hints of motion and bustle reaching up through his skin.
But something had shown through the mirrored surface of her eyes. It washed over him now as he sat poised on the edge of the bed. He paused for a moment, caught between tides, his thoughts churning madly along a whirlpool's path.
Breathing deeply, he swung his feet back onto the bedrock. And for that one morning, the city slept in, the river curled happily beside him.
Morning Mist by Rustypics (source image)
It's Not Fare by shoofle
