i will breathe the air (any)

[Camelia]

I will run the streets and hostile lands, I will touch the rain with all I have
I will breathe the air, to scream it loud. My feet will never touch the ground.

She visits Heaven’s Gates almost every night in her dreams. They are filled with memories of Camelia’s childhood. The most prominent are her mother’s lullaby’s softly cradling her into sleep under a starry sky and the Mother Tree’s watchful gaze, playing hide and seek with Mast and tumbling after him when they trip together, and whispering her deepest secrets and hopes and fears into the Mother Tree’s comforting embrace. She dances through the willow tree forests in between the waking hours, she snorts and prances and sings with the woodland creatures who love their home as much as she does, she wades through the slender streams and watches the silvery fish scatter from her happy feet.

Camelia’s favorite time of day is when she falls asleep, because it brings her back to the nostalgic places where her soul was content, her heart was happy, and her mouth was smiling. She still smiles every so often, in her little corner of Beqanna, but they are not the bright, sunshine-filled grins they used to be.

Her mouth has gray around the edges as she enters Heaven’s Gates for the first time in years. She can’t remember the last time she smelled the honeysuckle or spotted the Mother Tree’s mammoth form in the near distance. Her heart aches with a sudden pang as she walks past the borders. There is something different. There is something less alive. There is something missing. Camelia’s warm brown eyes turn toward the Mother Tree and she quickly begins to make her way toward it. Her feet break out into a fast run, joints mildly growling in soreness.

She knows she will feel the achiness more-so later, but she has more immediate charges.

When she reaches the Mother Tree, she knows. The heart of Heaven’s Gates – the solid beat of life, the place from which love flowed, the affectionate soul of the kingdom – is no longer alive. Something has happened to cease the life from the Tree’s warm embrace and Camelia feels her heart softly fracturing. The Mother Tree was perhaps the one true thing she knew she could rely on in her life – something she could rely on even more than herself.

A soft, choking cry leaves her slender throat and the once-queen moves to press her body alongside the massive trunk. Her heart aches, her soul mourns, her body shakes. Camelia simply sits under the unmoving limbs of the Tree, saying a silent eulogy of her own in a whispered voice, nose pressed close to the trunk she so dearly loves.

Camelia

[magnus]

we carry these things inside that no one else can see
they hold us down like anchors; they drown us out at sea

Magnus cannot rid himself of the anger that has settled so surely into his bones.

It chases him, night and day; it sinks teeth into hide and flesh—reminding him of everything that he has lost and fought for and failed. This is, perhaps, the emotion he feels the most acute. The failure. The regret. The wish that he could have been here to protect the kingdom during the war. The wish that he had not spent so many years in the ocean. The wish that he could have saved Joelle. Protected Minette. Shelter the Gates and her Mother Tree from harm. So many he had disappointed—so many he had let down.

It was a feeling that cut to his core, salt on the wound as he had stood there during the meeting. He had turned around and seen the confusion on their faces—the distrust, the discontentment rising. Part of him wishes he had fought harder to give them the answers that they had sought; part of him wishes he could have rattled them out of Zeik so the kingdom could rest easy knowing that the shifter stallion now stood at the helm. He wishes he had been better at easing their minds. He wishes he had done something.

But he hadn’t. He had exploded and then left, fury bitter in his mouth and works both spoken and the ones unspoken hanging in the air. It wouldn’t leave him, and he found that even in the days after the meeting that he still wandered the kingdom anxious and furious, energy that made his limbs shake and jaw set.

It was something that he could not distract himself from until he heard the soft sobs in the air. He lifted his head instantly, ears perking, as he searched for the source of it. When he saw the golden mare, so similar in hue to him, he instantly made his way toward her, pace quickened.

“Hello?” he called out when he was close to her. “Are you okay?”

magnus

[Camelia]

I will run the streets and hostile lands, I will touch the rain with all I have
I will breathe the air, to scream it loud. My feet will never touch the ground.

Regret is an emotion Camelia feels often. Sometimes she wonders if it is woven into the fiber of her bones. She regrets many things in her well-worn life – the regret of not being good enough for Heaven’s Gates, the regret of not being a good enough mother for her children, the regret of not being a good enough lover for her Mast, the regret of not being a good enough daughter for her parents. She often wonders if joy is woven into her body alongside regret, but that can be for a different discussion. No, regret is something Camelia has grown to live with. She feels as though she wasn’t good enough.

At least, she thought that until most recently.

Over her years of seclusion, Camelia began to dive deeper into herself than she had before. She took out the soft, delicate parts of her heart and examined them with great care. She decided what she wanted to change and what she didn’t. She figured out what made her into the woman she is now and who had influenced that. She learned more about herself than she ever had during her childhood, her relationship with Mast, her ruling of the Gates, or her parenting with Finner and Topsail.

But regret is the emotion that rides on her tears now as she clings to the Mother Tree. Her lips move in a silent prayer of thankfulness for everything her beloved Tree gave her and for the magic that used to flow through the kingdom. With her eyes tightly closed and her focus drawn toward her thoughts and saddened feelings, Camelia doesn’t notice the stallion approaching her until he speaks. Her slender body startles and she shifts closer to the silent, unmoving tree before twisting her delicate head in the direction of the speaker.

He looks as though he belongs in the Gates and Camelia’s mind instantly relaxes. Warm brown eyes look over the stallion in a moment of consideration. “What happened?” Her voice is throaty and ragged, rough from lack of use over the years and also from her emotions. She swallows hard, forcing away the rest of her anger, regret, sadness, and grief. Camelia can save it for another time. Gathering her mind and thoughts together, the once-queen takes a step away from the massive tree. “I’m Camelia,” she offers. She supposes names are as good a place as ever to start.

Camelia

[magnus]

we carry these things inside that no one else can see
they hold us down like anchors; they drown us out at sea

She startles as he draws near, and he comes to an instant stop, muscles stiffening underneath his scarred coat. “I am sorry,” he apologizes immediately, his voice whiskey and smoke in his throat. “I did not mean to frighten you.” She was beautiful and soft—and devastated. He knew what it was like to reach that point in your life; he knew what it felt like to have the oak peeled off from you to reveal the tender underbelly.

He had been there before, and he was sure that he would, eventually, be there again.

But today was not about him and his pain—it was about her. So he drops his head, his brows drawing together in concern as he listens to her, taking her name and tucking it away. “Camelia,” he repeats it gently, gold-flecked eyes washing over and then the tree by her side. He had no way of knowing that she was a once-ruler of this land like him; he had no way of knowing that she was the lover to the King of whom he had recently served as Lord under. She was but a girl torn apart by the damage done here.

“I was not here when it happened,” the words sting, the brutal truth of them, the failure. “But I have been told that Beqanna drained her magic from the land in response to a raid. A punishment.” Why all entities had to suffer for the arrogance of some was beyond him, but Magnus did not pretend to understand the wisdom and judgment of the heavens. Surely, there was justice in there that he was not seeing.

He had to believe that.

“My name is Magnus,” he offers, knowing the name had lost its meaning over the years—a relic of another age. “I wish that I was able to greet you with better news than I just have.”

magnus

[Camelia]

I will run the streets and hostile lands, I will touch the rain with all I have
I will breathe the air, to scream it loud. My feet will never touch the ground.

Camelia can tell he knows Heaven’s Gates as well as she. He fits well with the kingdom (a handsome yellow to blend with the greens and flowery colors of the kingdom’s flora and fauna) and he seems just as comfortable here as she once was. She can feel his sincerity leaking into her soft skin and she mourns for another moment. Her heart twists sharply at his words.

Beqanna is not what it used to be. Or perhaps it is and she was just too immature before to notice it. She once heard of the Valley War, when all of Beqanna launched their forces against the prominent evil lurking in the corner. She wonders if history repeated itself – if history will always repeat itself – and for a moment she is lost in thought. Camelia is brought back when he introduces himself. She nods to him (a ghost of when the flower crown weighed on her poll and she greeted everyone with a generous nod) and offers a smile. Despite her slender face drawn with the emotion of mourning, her smile is still as bright as it always has been.

“A pleasure to meet you, Magnus.” She exhales softly, her eyes dancing up toward the Mother Tree. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll walk the borders alone for a bit. Gather my thoughts.” She smiles, this time a bit watery, and then turns. Camelia inhales a refreshing breath and then heads toward the borders, intent on patrolling the perimeter to get back in the flow of old habits.

Camelia

I just figured I'd close this up since I know a lot has happened D: