CASIMIRA

dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah

“Everyone deserves forgiveness,” she gently corrects him. Perhaps some would call her foolish and naive, but she simply could not bring herself to carry around the anger that had come with hating Gale. After all, it did not change anything. Her mother still bore the scar on her chest from where he had ripped her heart out, and the pain of when she was gone could not be erased.

It seemed, to her at least, a waste of energy. 

“Perhaps it would be different if you had not been cursed, if you had done everything with an entirely sound mind. But I choose to believe you when you say that you did not know what you were doing.” She goes quiet for a moment, as if she is unsure about revealing what she says next. “I used to never remember the things I did in my dragon form. But there were enough signs to tell me I did terrible things.” The countless mornings that she awoke to the lingering taste of blood on her tongue, and the memory of the star-dappled mare speeding towards her during the Tephra-Loess war when she had the haloed-stallion pinned beneath her. “No one has ever directly forgiven me because I don’t know who to ask for it from, but I have tried to learn to forgive myself.”

Something that she has failed at almost daily, but she does not tell him this.
She does not tell him that even if everyone she had hurt forgave her she does not know if she could ever afford herself the same grace.

When he says that he does not know where to start, she has only one answer for him: “Hyaline.” It was the kingdom that had taken the brunt of his curse—Mazikeen and her mother, and all the residents that had grown wary living beneath his rule.

Finally, she takes a step back, shifting her gaze in the direction of her kingdom. “I should get back to Tephra,” her blue eyes find his again, offering him a small, tight smile. “You’re still welcome there, if you ever decide you don’t want to be alone. Just no nightmares this time, we get enough of those from Rare,” she says with her weak attempt at humor, although she does not expect him to know or remember who her daughter is.

“Take care, Gale,” she leaves him with another faint smile, and with a spread of her dragon wings she takes flight, disappearing over the sea.