She has a coast of her own but there is something about this one that has always appealed. Once upon a time she used to wander down here and look for ways down to the water but never found any.
It has been a very long time since she last came this far, last stood on a nameless ledge and let herself be no one.
The waves break themselves against the grey-black cliffs. They cast spray up over the jagged edge on which she stands —a fine cold mist that clings to the hairs on her face and neck. The sky is the soft grey of a certain pair of eyes, and cirrus clouds all but obscure it. Their underbellies orange with the rising sun. A sun that crawls into the sky somewhere behind her left shoulder.
The forest is still night-dark at her back, but is waking on circadian rhythm and the disturbance of her passing ten minutes before. Kensa likes the forest at night, the close coldness. She has always known it to be a place for monsters and secrets but its only now that she understands why she's always felt so at home. It isn't easy to make peace with herself. A long walk through the forest in the small hours has pushed away the self-loathing that keeps trying to cling to her. Now she can stand on this rim of stone with stubborn stringy grass whiskering out of the small cracks at her feet and think with clarity.
At first, understanding how unworthy she was of Litotes' devotion had been difficult. Kensa's pride had created in her a certainty of her own perfect irresistability. Of course he wanted her. Of course he loved her. Of course.
Of course he doesn't anymore.
An empty room resides where he once dwelt inside her. A room she looks into again and again each time as though she has forgotten he has gone. No one waits in the leather armchair that sits behind that door. No one looks up at her with eyes as yellow-gold as her own, full of the loving devotion that she had never deserved. The room is empty, and cold, and still she opens the door on accident, or to remind herself to hurt.
There is no one to blame but herself. She the most honest of liars and the cruelest of sweethearts. Even Starsin's part in things is small and meaningless beside Kensa's selfishness and blissful omissions. She knows this, has sat with it for a long time now and just wants to feel clean again. Kensa lives with the pain, makes it a part of her, but the foulness of her own she wants washed away.
In the end it was for the best that Brigade had left. She should never have said what she had, especially so fresh from her break with Litotes. Even though it had felt as real as anything, all the filth of her mistakes clung to the words and made them into something else. It is good that she is alone these days, finding her way back from her own failings.
Pale nostrils flare and she fills her lungs with the smell of the sea, brine and dew. The wind takes away the other scent, pushes it from her so that she remains unaware of any other soul nearby.
@[brigade]
