"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
Made of scars and stars, Ciri had always navigated this world with a little naivety, not always understanding the ways of the heart or the minds of others, how they always worked. How could she, when the Underneath had shown her exactly why. Why she had been different, what she truly was despite the mortal coil of this dark body. Things like love and hate, complex emotions that sometimes ranged in the gray, these were things she felt so vibrantly for how can stars truly know what it is to feel until they experience it for themselves?
She can count all of her regrets, all her mistakes, through every scar that touches her body. She regrets not being able to raise her only child and that Jah had taken him (and unknown to her Amet himself) from her, she regrets the way things had ended with Amet. She regrets not being able to tell that something had been wrong with Gale, she regrets that she has constantly failed to save or avenge him. She regrets not being as strong (in body, heart, and mind) as she had always tried to be. She regrets this anger that resides within her (stubborn and bloody) that perhaps had been too much for Leokadia and why the mare had disappeared, taking whatever had been unfolding between them with her.
Most of all (when she had stood amongst the glassy pebbles on the burnt beach left by a dragon who she had once known) she wishes, and wondered, what would have happened if she had been as honest with Castile as she had been with Amet. That is the one choice that still leaves her with so many What ifs. Where would they all be now if she had simply told him the truth? What if she had stopped trying to care about everyone else’s feelings and put her own first?
What would have happened if she had told him that she had fallen for him and given him a chance?
It’s been a very long time since these thoughts had crossed her mind but when she had been locked inside the ice, all she could do is replay these decisions and choices in her head over and over again. All she had was time, to replay every single memory and every single thing that had happened. That had led her here. And for some reason, tonight, Castile is imprinted on her mind. Perhaps it had been the grin on Kestrell’s buffoonish face that had brought it back. It had been so similar to the one the dragon shifter had flashed to her (charming and roguish) when they had first met beside Hyaline’s lake. The beginning of the end to everything she had known. Nothing had been the same since, nothing had been good since. Or maybe it had been stirring in her since she had spoken to Mazikeen beside the burnt remains of the wisteria (the charcoaled remains of her innocence).
It prickles in the back of her mind, it calls to her.
It’s these thoughts that bring her back to the Isle. On silent starlit wings, haloed by her crimson stars, she lands on the very beach she had been thinking of (the one that tethers that small piece inside of her back to the young girl she had once been, the only thing left of him.) She is still too thin, her skin too sore, her rage still blazing and unchecked. But she’s here, standing on the only thing she has left.
02-04-2022, 09:35 PM (This post was last modified: 02-04-2022, 09:42 PM by Arrowe.)
She comes like the thing she is named after: sharp, quick, and straight.
She flies with a purpose that is wholly unnecessary, each wing stroke fighting hard against the cool northern winds. Arrowe is determined to see the Isle while the world is at its warmest, before cold completely consumes the kingdom of glass and granite. Her mother had told her about the place when she was only as tall as the woman’s white stockings. She had listened, but only in the half-hearted, restless way of the young. Her dam had always meant to come here. That, she remembers. The rest is background buzzing in her head that she shakes now to try to rid herself of. She will make her own opinions and find her own stories. The shadow of her mother will not darken her here.
She will burn brighter and go farther than she could have ever hoped to.
Her turquoise feathers tremble against the back-draft of her own descent. The cross winds coming off the rough ocean toss her to and fro, making her landing a rather ungraceful one as the ground comes up too quickly and at the wrong angle. She curses as her knees hit the rocky shoreline. “Damn.” A warm trickle of blood makes its way down both of her forelegs as she rights herself. She forgets her wounds almost immediately in favor of taking in the place she has fallen into.
It is unlike her home island in almost every way, from the grey land to the deep blue ocean. There are no swaying palm trees or jewel-colored macaws filling the air with their squawks and songs. In fact, there is little sound at all save the crashing of the waves. Arrowe looks to her left and is surprised to see another apparently taking in the sights. How had she missed her from her flight in? Perhaps the grey-black of her coat had blended in. But how could she have missed the stars? They draw her in now, shining in spite of the drab place.
“You live here or just here to see it like me?” Unlike the glass that has been smoothed under their feet, Arrowe’s voice is cutting. She moves closer to the stranger than would be considered polite, close enough that the light of the stars reflect in her blue eyes as she accesses the other woman. There is no hostility, but her posture reveals an open boldness that she clearly has no plans to scale back. “So far, I’m not impressed.”
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
There had been snatches of news in the common lands where she had been thawing out since her release. Bits and pieces that she was able to put together a hazy idea of what had happened while she had been trapped. The South was completely under water, something she had seen briefly for herself from a distance on her flight path here. It hadn’t phased her much, not having many ties to those lands or anyone in them. There had been a slight flicker of bittersweet nostalgia when she had thought of the golden leaves of Sylva, where her lost son had been conceived, but it fades as quickly as it comes. She should be more bothered, she thinks, the old Ciri would have been sad and empathetic to those that had lost their home and lives. The anger in her finds it can’t be bothered by such things anymore, not when she has her own problems to rage about it.
She was also aware that the Isle was no longer the kingdom seat for the North but to who it had been handed to, she is unaware. Naturally, her thoughts turn to Nashua. Was he still here? Had he handed over the rule of the South willingly? Their last meeting had not been a pleasant one. Most of their conversations had been tense since Gale had been taken by the Curse, but part of her hopes that he is still here… If only to look him in the eyes and ask him why. Why nobody had bothered to come looking for the Thane.
Lost in her thoughts and the brewing storm to come, she hadn’t noticed the presence of another. Her head is turned towards the sea and not the Isle behind her, as if she was still working up the courage to face it despite finally being here. It’s the sharp voice that makes her ears flick back, that turns the chaotic spinning silver of her eyes to the stranger followed by those crimson stars that dance eerily around her. It wouldn't take much to see the tense muscle working in her cheek, the way her neglected muscles become taunt beneath her thin skin, the sudden wariness she wears like a cloak. The flickering of her blood-red stars reflect back in the unknown’s turquoise one, looking like flames dancing amongst the waves found around the islands to the west.
A snarl begins to curl at the corner of her mouth but she says nothing back to the other’s question. Nor does she bother to either agree or disagree with her assessment about the Isle. The anger wants her to snap back, to let her know that she isn’t something Ciri's impressed with either. To say it only out of spite because she no longer trusts a pretty face. The words stay in her mouth but the thought lingers.
She’s not sure if this is home anymore. It had been, at least, she had hoped it would be. Why had she come back? Because she wanted to or because she had nowhere else to go? The coppery tang of blood hits her nostrils, making them wrinkle with disgust. She is so sick of that smell which instantly brings back memories of her life oozing from the multiple wounds he had caused to her chest, spilling out on the grass in the meadow from shattered legs. Waking up in it, dying in it.
Her voice is tight and clipped when she finally speaks, the spinning of silver in her eyes never slowing their pace as they flick towards the cuts on her legs. “Your bleeding.” She states in a flat tone and for a second it seems she hesitates, as if considering to offer her help. The moment passes and suddenly the scarred mare moves past her without another word, folding her starlit wings over her backside as she starts to head off the beach and towards the colder parts of the territory where the heart shaped lake resides.
She sees the sudden lines of tension in the body of the other woman standing beside her. It is a callous sort of recognition that lights in her eyes, thinking that she now has the upper hand and all of the power between them. She has surprised this star-draped stranger who looks as if she might let the sea drag her out if it was so inclined. And while another might try to smooth over the fractured introduction, Arrowe thrills at the friction that sparks like static electricity in the cool air.
Conversely to here, Ischia’s hot, tropical air had raised her, but it had also seemingly been lit inside of her and grown into a wildfire. She has always felt the fire simmering through her veins just below the surface of her skin. It makes her do things, say things, which she so rarely regrets later on. It makes her reactive and restless and reckless. It makes her quick, sharp, and stronger, she thinks. She has never known a moment without it.
So it doesn’t bother her that Ciri ignores her commentary and question. The spinning of her eyes and the curling of her lip is more interesting, anyways. Yes, she has come to see the Isle for herself, to take in the stark beauty of the winter wasteland and any wonders it may be hiding. But she thinks those will have to wait, if they even do exist. The woman comments on her bloodied knees, an injury she has already forgotten about.
“Yeah, so?” Her own voice is only marginally softened by surprise. Blood is a way of life in her family. Hunting is a birthright that has been passed down from her parents to all but one of her siblings, her own weaker twin. She has danced the predator’s dance and worn the skin of ferocious beasts more times than she can count. Blood is not something to be feared where she is from, but she wonders if it is not the case for the dark stranger who brushes by her. Arrowe watches her pass with folded wings for a couple of moments before falling in line behind her.
“If I wash my offensive knees off, can you show me around this heap of rock? ” Goading still, though less enthusiastic than before. She follows just far enough behind to hopefully avoid a swift kick, should the mare be disagreeable to being her guide. In the back of her mind, she already decides what she will shift into to eat her if she does choose violence. It is colder away from the southern shoreline, and in a thought, thick polar bear fur covers her body.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
The boiling of her blood, the many injustices she had faced (that tower around her in large teetering stacks), that endless ebb and flow of anger that turns her stars that particular livid color… It all makes her on edge, thoughtless, and reactive as well. That’s where their similarities end. For she doesn’t enjoy the friction, doesn’t enjoy the madness that turns her further and further away from the girl she had once been, the star she had thought she was. She doesn’t enjoy the viper that seems to be permanently attached to her tongue, had spent far too many hours locked in that glacier thinking of the tears in Nashua’s mother’s eyes. Tears that she had caused to someone who had not deserved her wild and rash outrage.
It seems a cruel mockery now, the task the fairy from the Mountain had requested in exchange for finding out once and for all if she was a star or not. Protect four others without the use of magic, what a joke. It had never been about the magic, having given that up once the Curse had stained her power. No, it was a cruel irony to try and protect others when she couldn’t protect herself, couldn’t alleviate that red storm that never stops raging inside of her, couldn’t do anything but dig herself into deeper and deeper holes. Perhaps that had been the fae’s plan all along, perhaps she had never been meant to unlock the truth. Perhaps no matter what she had been… It didn’t matter anymore.
In death, she had found only oppressive black silence. Nothing more. No welcome back into the sky, no shining brilliance and warmth. It had hurt her more than the phantom lighting she still feels flickering in her chest where the Curse had hidden his own mockery of a heart… Only to rip it back out. Hurt more than the broken heart she had carried for two dragons, hurt more than being ripped away from her only child. The Curse had taken her optimism, her hope, her purpose, and in a matter of seconds had destroyed it all.
So she doesn’t care what the stranger does, if she follows her like an unwanted puppy or not. If she stains the snow around them with her blood, if she calls the Isle the most offensive things she can think of, if she wanders off a cliff, if she continues her annoying persistent questioning… She doesn’t care. There was no point. Love and life itself was pointless and this striped creature was no exception. The thought of kicking her does cross her mind but she finds she doesn’t have the energy to do so anyways. She is still too thin, too tired from being imprisoned in the ice, too exhausted just in getting here from the meadow. Instead, she looks over her shoulder and flat out laughs, something dark and hard, at what she sees there. The polar bear fur that now covers her body, a shifter… Of course.
She was so fucking sick of shifters.
A single metallic eye finds the strangers gaze, the other hidden beneath her tangled raven forelock. There is no humor there, nor is there any fear. If this was meant to be an intimidation tactic then the stranger would find herself sorely disappointed. It would take more than a simple bear to unnerve her. Not after everything else she had faced. “Does it look like I have time to babysit you?” She asks in a deathly quiet type of way. To make it clear she’s not expecting an answer, she turns back to her path without another word. Raising her starlit wings over her back to avoid the thick snow, she begins to plow through it with her frostbitten body. Every step is painful to the point that her eyes water with unshed tears that freeze long before they can escape and yet she continues on. There is no glance back to see if the other had ended up following her or not although one dark ear does flick back after a few minutes to see if it catches the crunch of hooves behind her.
