 there's a moment we make a decision
not to cower and crash to the ground
What's left for them now? What is left when your parents, beloved parents, pillars of strength, come crashing down?
The answer is simple: each other, and any friends they've made along the way. Valkerine has been more lucky than her sister in that regard. She's always been more apt to follow others, no matter where that following may lead – and luckily for her, more often than not it's lead to friends. And so as Thorny has grown more distant, taking solace in the desolate reaches of the Valley, Val has found herself unknowingly seeking out relationships, accidentally drying her eyes in the shoulders of Shahrizai and others.
But none of them are Thorny. And as soon as she is confident that she can be strong for Thorny, as soon as she is confident that she can be what her sister deserves to have, she returns to the Valley.
She finds her twin easily enough. Haven't they always been able to do that? Haven't they always been two sides to each other's coin? Perhaps they'll always be able to do it, right down until the moment they die – or, really, the moment that Val dies, leaving Thorny entirely alone.
She'll still have Nayl, but it will not be the same.
Val pauses, watching her sister wander the valley just a few yards away. They're both so much bigger than when they were newborn, bigger even than when they'd last trained with their father. Bigger than when they'd lost mother. Bigger, if only a little, than when they'd lost their father. But they're not big enough, not nearly big enough, to face life on their own.
"Thorny…" her voice is soft, perhaps so soft that it gets stuck on the wind. She is moving then, so fast, covering ground faster than she should be, almost tripping and stumbling. "Thorny!" she is screaming now, crying out for her twin, her voice so loud it's almost impossible to understand the words except that her twin would already know what they are.
And in just a few moments, she is crashing into her twin, wrapping Thorrun in a fierce, sisterly horse hug and giving her other half no choice in the matter.
valkerine
 | | Skegg\uc0\u491 ld, Sk\'e1lm\u491 ld, Skildir ro Klofnir | Maybe if Thorunn had spent more time away from father she'd have made friends like Val did. The truth is that neither of their parents were particularly social creatures. The fact they met each other was strange enough, two wandering ships that happened to make port in the same city. Covet, always tied to duty, was rarely one to seek council from another. And Librette? She often spoke without thinking, realizing too late she'd said something she couldn't take back.
Val, it seemed, took on the recessive trait of friendship.
Thorunn, it seemed, took on the dominant trait of preferring to be alone.
But alone was a relative term, wasn't it? Val was as much a part of Thorunn as her own skin. She knew that Val went elsewhere after father's death, she could feel her retreating. She's not sure how, or where, the sensation arose. Her soul? Her heart? Her brain? Some other celestial aspect of herself? In any case she knew Val was gone.
And then, suddenly, she wasn't.
Her neck was wrapped around Thorunn, her tear filled voice ringing in her ears. She is stiff for a moment, for the beginning, remembering to be the strong one. She's always the strong one, isn't she? But there's something so familiar about her sister that she doesn't have to pretend and she lets the tears come then. They're hot and slow rolling down her face, clouding her orange eyes.
"Oh Val," she sighs into her sister's mane. "Oh Val, what do we do?" | | Thorunn | | immortal, mind-reading immune daughter of Covet and Librette |
there's a moment we make a decision
not to cower and crash to the ground
She doesn't break until her sister does. But when Thorny, stoic Thorny, starts to cry, Val can't help but match her. Tears for tears, they stand embraced, both sharing in their moment of infinite loss.
What do we do, her sister asks, and Val is unsure. She's always been the sure one, the one with the plan, the one who never hesitates, who rarely thinks through, who acts on pure instinct. And perhaps that's what she really is: perhaps she's simply a ball of instincts, acting without thinking, rather than a friendly creature.
But now? Now, all of her certainty is gone, ebbed away on the shore of the beach, as surely dead as her mother and her father. Now she knows nothing but that she aches for the both of them, for Thorny and for Val, for their mother and their father.
What do we do? The only thing they can do.
She blinks once, twice, forcing herself back into calm and composure. As though she can stop the tears by sheer force of will. She succeeds somewhat, the tears aren’t quite as thick now. She remains wrapped around her sister, the yin to Thorrun's yang, drawing support from her twin just as she gives it.
But when she speaks, her voice is no longer wracked by tears. Quiet, subdued, hushed – but she's in control. "I don't know what we do." she blinks her eyes closed. "I don't know, other than to keep…surviving." She says the last word almost as though it's a foreign concept, something academic, something she'd only just started to consider.
"It's what they'd want, isn't it?" She isn't sure if she's asking her sister, asking ghosts, or asking the wind.
valkerine
| | Skegg\uc0\u491 ld, Sk\'e1lm\u491 ld, Skildir ro Klofnir | It's what they'd want.
Is it? Thorunn is never sure these days exactly what is wanted of her. With father and mother she had purpose! Father was training her in war, mother was...well, mother was always there. Mother did what she could with a daughter who far preferred the company of her father. Thorunn regrets the slights, no matter how small, she manged toward their mother. Did she take that to her grave thinking her orange eyed child hated her?
Thorunn can feel the tears again, but she pushes them back. Not for Val, not for herself, just because it's what father would want. He'd never chide her for crying but he would not tolerate it. He would have left her then. If he's here, she thinks, he's surely frowning.
She sniffles and steps back to see her sister through bloodshot eyes. "Will you stay?" she asks her sister, knowing the answer. Her sister won't stay. Val was always destined for things outside of the Valley, Thorunn thinks her mother knew. Their mother - born of the Valley herself. Thorunn will stay, it's written all over her face. | | Thorunn | | immortal, mind-reading immune daughter of Covet and Librette |
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