eloheinu melech ha'olam - etro

[etro]

etro --

in the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon,
I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom

Etro simmers beneath Yael’s persistence, her anger dissipating to leave her with nothing but the sadness—to feel nothing but the weakness in the sorrow. “You’re right,” she breathes, and her voice is small, perhaps quieter than she has ever been before. Because Yael was right. The last thing that Vanquish would want is for Etro to fall into the black, depthless waters of rage—no matter how holy, no matter how right.

So she sighs, closing her eyes and feeling the tears clog her throat.

“What now?” she asks, and her expression is slack with despair, the fight between them forgotten, that faux anger having long bled from her. She did not know if she was brave enough to return home—to risk the illness that had began to creep into her flesh for a trait she did not fully understand. She wasn’t sure what she should do now, but she knew that she would do whatever her mother suggested.

But her mother’s next confession makes her breath catch in her throat, and she swallows quickly, trying to suppress the hope that flares in her stomach. “You do?” she closes her eyes and presses her forehead against her mother’s neck. “Is it dangerous?” Not that danger would necessarily dissuade Etro from wanting her mother to try, but she had to know the risk. “How can I help?”

-- vanquish and yael's forgotten trait-negating princess --