just a ghost in the shell

[Thorunn]

thorrun;

When mother died things got rough.
When father died things became impossible.

As a girl loved so dearly by her parents, loss is hard without them. Days would drag by where she tried to embody her father while Val tread endlessly in their mother's tracks. Her and Val were two sides of the same coin, and her absence cut daggers into her to think about it.

The weight of the Valley pressed on her, the weight of her family pressed on her, and Thorunn snapped. She ran without ever looking back and did exactly what her father had done countless times in his long life - hide. She sought solace in all the places he spoke of in his youth. The shadows, the dark edges of Beqanna, where the light didn't touch you. It wrapped itself around her like a welcome friend and caressed the soft, vulnerable parts of her soul. She let herself FEEL for once instead of hiding beneath her fathers mask of indifference. There, in the shadows, she could be herself.

But even the shadows had an expiration date, and Thorunn was pressed to leave their comfort eventually.
Fly, baby bird, fly.

So she crashed into the meadow, the gateway to the real world of Beqanna, where she could still cling to anonymity, looking like the clone of her mother but with every bit her father in her.

[Kerowyn]

and the light of a fading star
is what you were, is what you are

In the year after Caeli disappeared, Kerowyn thought every night that her heart might finally give way and tear the threads that kept it together. Her mother immolated herself in a flood of guilt when Kero was only two - and the world has seemed darker ever since. Too dark for the bright white of the Desert. To dark for the gray of the Tundra. But never too dark for the stars that are Tamora, Marigny, and Torrid; they cast a halo of light around them, and in it, she is whole again.

A mother’s grasp, however, is tenuous after a certain age, and Kerowyn’s haven is fading away - growing up. There’s nothing she can do about it but try and keep it together. Try to fly on her own. Her companions have been constant, even when they were only in her mind and her womb. Kerowyn was never meant to be a solitary creature; that is what it means to have a twin. You will never be alone.

Until you are.

A chestnut mare comes barreling into the Meadow, and by the grace of Kerowyn’s nimble hooves, she narrowly avoids a collision. She squeaks in surprise, and as she catches after herself, boldly calls out in indignation, “Hey! Watch where you’re going!” As if the quiet mare really had some sort of backbone instead of a belly full of a self-pity.

kerowyn

brennen x morphine

lmk if i got that wrong. can edit.

[Thorunn]

thorrun;

Leave it to Thorunn to reintroduce herself to the land of the living by trying to take out another.
Her crash into the meadow was graceless and flawed, so opposite of her attempts as being as lithe and ballerina-like as her father. Despite his stocky, massive frame he managed to tiptoe around as though gravity could bend to him. Thorunn was far from mastering that, looking like a girl playing at adulthood. Painfully forced, even more painful to watch.
"I..." she begins, unsure if she should be indignant or stone faced. Or apologetic. Or anything, really, how does one respond to such an intrusion? Her mother's sense would say to huff in her awkward way and drum up some forced conversation, steer the topic astray. Her father would blink his empty orange eyes and by the sheer force of will have the other back down.
But what would Thorunn do? All the time in the shadows and she still hadn't truly found herself, truly found her voice.
"It's a free country!" she says at long last, her attempts at bravado just as empty as the others. They are both shells of real creatures, parroting something they're not. Of course, Thorunn is much too childish to open her eyes and see this. Anyone can see this. Thorunn, though, is still stuck in herself, too introspective to look outside.
She realizes her statement makes no sense and lets a heavy pause settle between them, her orange eyes just as blank as her fathers. Then, in a sudden burst of emotion (is this characteristic? Or uncharacteristic?) she laughs. A true, hearty laugh.
"I have no idea where the fuck that came from."