stay low, swim to home, hold tight

I heard no pounding her fist on the roof of my mouth--

That fire burnt raven queen had given her a choice -- she had offered up on a silver platter the thought of freedom, had tried to stick a silver spoon in the wretched girls’ mouth, had tried to clip the shackles from her skin. And Greta had denied, denied, denied. The girl had said no, because she knew nothing else. She was too far afraid of the idea of freedom, too fearful of the reach of her father, too timid to be anything but what she had known.
She had been foolish then (always, always foolish- that would never change it seemed). Her queen had cloaked her from her father, a darkness shading her as long as she strayed from him. And then, she was gone (swallowed up into the earth, torn asunder for her actions). And Greta was naked again - ripe for the picking.
Of course, he would always pluck at the raw skin (how he lived to see the blood seep towards the skin, dots to make up a constellation of pain). And so he came, as she left. His commands were simple, straight forward (as they must be). This time, there were no tears. This time, there was only a little fear. This time, it seemed he did not care for her - but for him - a soul she did not know, but must find.
Smashed blue into his skin, wings of water, the familiar crackle of power under his skin. ’Look in the cold. Look in the shadow. Look in the places you fear’, he had said. And why could he just not do the very same? Why could he not just reach out with that silver ribbon of might and bring the boy to him? Why was it a burden for her to bear? (Because she had no choice. Because her father lived to make her suffer. Because he was likely putting her as a plaything into this man’s control.)
And so she went - in search of a soul she knew nothing of (only that likely, he was just as dark and putrid as her father). She should have said yes, should have said yes, yes, yes. Anything but this again.
---
The snow bites (so very different from Pangea) - and she squints through the sandlike quality of it in her eyes trying to discern creature from god's creations. Blue, water, might and magic. Maybe it is here that she will find him.

but I had not put up the exit sign.

Greta