06-05-2021, 02:20 PM
I knew her for a little ghost
That in my garden walked;
The wall is high—higher than most—
And the green gate was locked.
That in my garden walked;
The wall is high—higher than most—
And the green gate was locked.
Despite everything, everything, everything, she remains impassive to tragedy, unmoved by its inherent anguish. She is steadfast by her own making. Elliana does not hold the world in her heart as her mother does. It is both Elena’s greatest gift and her downfall. Though how further she could tumble down a mountain of her own creation, Elliana does not know.
There isn't much about Elliana that would make her a fighter - her abilities more like a toy, the gentle curves of her body a little too thin, her bones a little too frail, the whole of her just shy of tall enough to be taken seriously. Were she a human, Elli's home would be on the stage, her heart beating calmly, body moving with the slow grace of a ballerina, not a warrior. But Reave’s own ability to wear armor into battle, to be made from a war born thing, she can appreciate. She once had a sword made of wood, and she relished in the feeling of having something to raise above her head and call out a battle cry. But ultimately, she is a thing of not peace of passivity.
That may be worse.
She is not a creature of secrets (except a meadow, a lion made of light), that was her mother. Elena was so in love with her secrets, with biting her tongue to keep from spilling them. Can she even remember what it tastes like without blood in her mouth? Her blue eyes depart from his, blinking once, twice, and she turns her face instead to trace the trees in the distance, focusing on the green of the leaves, silently wondering if they wish fall would come so that they may burn a beautiful scarlet before departing the branch they so cling to.
“Shall a garden grow inside those bones of yours then, so that they may bloom for an eternity at least,” she tells him with a half hidden smile and a breezy note of laughter. Fireflies cross her again. A lion of light. Goodbye. A ship. A realization.
Reave may see her memories, but oh if only, If only he could see the gentle, steady creature that is Elliana sway in the metaphorical breeze of her emotions right now, uprooted by some great earthquake the likes of which her small, lithe body never knew because it never asked. Maybe she never loved Aeneas to begin with.
Maybe she just loved the heartbreak.
And maybe that makes her so much more like her mother than she would have ever thought.
Cringing inwardly at the thought, the shadow-girl smiles outwardly and fixes a steady, blue-sky gaze on Reave as he speaks of his ailment (or his gift, might Elliana say, for not all gifts need be beautiful). “The curse of compassion,” she says with a shadow of a grin, though her blue eyes grow bright with something less than humor but brighter than any indifference. “Sometimes the right thing to do makes no difference at all, but that’s just life.” And there is a delicate shrug of her shoulders. “Come, into the shadows here,” she says and leads him away from the light so that she may make use of her father’s own gift in a way that is entirely her mother’s. “Have you ever been scared of the dark?” She asks him like the little shadow girl she is. She tosses a milky white forelock from her eyes, revealing the heart on her brow for a moment in time. “If you ever were, you would not need to be now.” She says and she begins to work, gathering those shadows and turning them into something light.
Doodle colored by star <3
@[Reave]