There's blood on your tongue
when you kiss me goodbye
She had slept. After the lands had shifted and everything she had known and loved had been stripped away, she had felt such bone-deep tiredness. A thing impossible to deny. She had heard such a thing would take those blessed (or cursed, however one might look at it) with immortality, but it is the first she had experienced it. And when she had woken, everything had been changed. Everything she had ever known, erased from existence as though it had never been.
For so long now she has been cast adrift. What once had dictated her life no longer seems to matter. That home she had returned to over and over again is lost to the ashes.
It had taken her time to regain the brightness that had once been such an inherent part of her. It is impossible to vanquish, but she had felt so dimmed for so long, lost in the darkness. But she had pushed onward because she must. Because it is what she had always done. Life would not wait for her.
Now, after so many long years, she feels a semblance of the woman that had once existed has finally returned. And so she walks into the world once more.
She had floated above the earth for hours, trying to gain her bearings in a land so foreign and strange. When finally she had landed, it had been into the misty wood of pine, a land faintly reminiscent of the Dale she had once so loved. This could be a home, she thinks. Not like the one she had lost, but a new one. A fresh one.
Briefly, her heart aches for that lost time. For a love she hasn’t seen in so many years. He has forgotten her, no doubt. She had never truly been to him what he had to her. She cannot begrudge him it though. He had given her so much, had taught her so much. And she wishes him happiness, with all her heart, no matter how much it aches.
With a soft exhale, she moves forward, russet gaze taking in the scenery surrounding her. She is a woman who has lived, her body a testament to that life. A ragged, circular scar is etched across her chest, stark white against the red. A testament to her determination and bravery. A patchwork of faint scars are scattered across one side of her small, delicate form, telling stories of nearly forgotten pain and terror. But still she shines, an undeniable brightness to her soul, an undefeatable kindness softening her gaze. Life has not been kind to her, but she remains unconquered, unbreakable in strength and spirit.
She does not see him until she is nearly upon him, and when she does, she stills. For a moment, her heart squeezes inside her chest. With only a glance, he could easily be mistaken for a wolf. Her hip burns briefly with a phantom pain that traces the parallel scars there, a kaleidoscope of memories reminding her of too close encounters with the vicious, magical wolves that had invaded the Dale so many eons ago. But upon closer inspection, she recognizes the man beneath the beast.
Still, she remains cautious. “Hello,” she greets softly, a smile curving her lips, warm despite her caution. “I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you.”
Elysteria