red sun rises like an early warning; any

[Cordis]

She finds herself, as she often does, at the river. It’s a touchstone, the river, a place of joy and misery alike. The memories are crushing in and of themselves, but it is a weight she has become used to bearing. This does not mean it is pleasant, it does not mean she doesn’t ache constantly. She does. (Oh, she does.) She handles it, if you can call it that. She swallows the water that drowns her ‘til she’s sick, and she’ll keep doing so. Survival runs thick in her blood, always has, some bone-deep instinct that has kept her going, kept her persisting through it all. For it all, she stands strong, a vision in silver at the river’s edge. She is old, now, but it doesn’t show, the lightning smooths her skin, keeps her features young, a savage, feral beauty about her. The lightning does more than beautify, of course, it acts as a cage, crackling against her skin, keeping anyone at bay. (It’s been decades since Him, but she still allows so few to touch her.) She is strange, and perhaps terrible, this lightning-fed woman who looks at the river with a mix of reverence and woe. She is burdened, but she does her best not to look it, she stands straight, head high, because she has not lost, not yet. c o r d i s I’ll touch you all and make damn sure that no one touches me