03-23-2023, 11:30 PM
i never wanted saving, i just wanted to be found --
When Beqanna had first begun to change again she had tried to keep herself from hoping.
When water began to recede and lands emerged, when things began to return to something that could almost be called normal, she had been careful to keep that hope from sparking in her chest, afraid that falling from the high of it would be something more than she could bear.
The Dale, the Gates, the Chamber, and Pangea—three lands that had not been around since long before she was born, and a fourth land that, with its desert-like landscape, is the last place she would ever care about—all made their return, but not Tephra. Where she and all of her siblings had been born, the only place that she had ever considered to be home.
The disappointment had been concealed from her face when her father, freshly returned from scouting the seas, confirmed that Tephra was still gone. It wasn’t hard to hide it; it’s easy, when you had trained yourself to never expect anything in the first place.
But there is a hollow ache in her chest, uncomfortable as it swells against her ribcage, and all the disappointment she had been trying to hide settles right into that space. Beqanna was returning back to normal, and she still felt as though she had nothing. Uninterested in hearing anything about the returning lands she disappears into the forest, in search of clarity that she is sure she will not find.
She does not realize at first that her steps are leading her back to where she had met him, where he had more or less alluded to meeting her here again. It was mostly out of habit, since at one time this had led her to the water’s edge—where looking across it she could see where Tephra used to be. The flood water is gone now, in its place a stretch of uninhabitable land shrouded in a strange, dark fog, and she is not sure if this is better or worse. It didn't matter, since she still had nowhere to go either way.
Frustrated, she whirls around abruptly, and when she comes face to face with someone who is familiar and yet not she cannot keep the surprise from sparking in her bright blue eyes. There is a horn now where once there hadn’t been one, and wings settled at his sides, which she knew had not been there before. But she recognizes his face, and all at once she finds that he is exactly the distraction she needed.
She recovers quickly from being caught off guard with a coy smile as she eases back into a role she knew all too well, even if the tightness in her chest has not yet lessened. “Well, fancy seeing you here, stranger,” she says as she takes a step back, visibly appraising his new look, before directing her stare back to his face with an appreciative smile. “You met a pretty girl in the forest with a horn and wings and decided you had to try the look out for yourself? I'm flattered.”
When water began to recede and lands emerged, when things began to return to something that could almost be called normal, she had been careful to keep that hope from sparking in her chest, afraid that falling from the high of it would be something more than she could bear.
The Dale, the Gates, the Chamber, and Pangea—three lands that had not been around since long before she was born, and a fourth land that, with its desert-like landscape, is the last place she would ever care about—all made their return, but not Tephra. Where she and all of her siblings had been born, the only place that she had ever considered to be home.
The disappointment had been concealed from her face when her father, freshly returned from scouting the seas, confirmed that Tephra was still gone. It wasn’t hard to hide it; it’s easy, when you had trained yourself to never expect anything in the first place.
But there is a hollow ache in her chest, uncomfortable as it swells against her ribcage, and all the disappointment she had been trying to hide settles right into that space. Beqanna was returning back to normal, and she still felt as though she had nothing. Uninterested in hearing anything about the returning lands she disappears into the forest, in search of clarity that she is sure she will not find.
She does not realize at first that her steps are leading her back to where she had met him, where he had more or less alluded to meeting her here again. It was mostly out of habit, since at one time this had led her to the water’s edge—where looking across it she could see where Tephra used to be. The flood water is gone now, in its place a stretch of uninhabitable land shrouded in a strange, dark fog, and she is not sure if this is better or worse. It didn't matter, since she still had nowhere to go either way.
Frustrated, she whirls around abruptly, and when she comes face to face with someone who is familiar and yet not she cannot keep the surprise from sparking in her bright blue eyes. There is a horn now where once there hadn’t been one, and wings settled at his sides, which she knew had not been there before. But she recognizes his face, and all at once she finds that he is exactly the distraction she needed.
She recovers quickly from being caught off guard with a coy smile as she eases back into a role she knew all too well, even if the tightness in her chest has not yet lessened. “Well, fancy seeing you here, stranger,” she says as she takes a step back, visibly appraising his new look, before directing her stare back to his face with an appreciative smile. “You met a pretty girl in the forest with a horn and wings and decided you had to try the look out for yourself? I'm flattered.”
adriana
@assailant