05-20-2015, 09:42 PM
Else watches him carefully, reflexively keeping the left side of her face at an angle that would make it impossible for the rain sodden boy to see the dead muscle and worn-away pockets of twisted flesh where her eye should be. It was enough of a shock for someone who was expecting it, but she wasn’t eager to see a child’s face twist with fear and uncertainty at the utter wrongness. Elanor was different, she had never seemed to notice the difference, but then it was all she had ever known. It was hard to notice a difference when there was nothing to compare it to.
She noticed almost immediately how the boy didn’t flinch beneath the rain, didn’t tremble with the crash of thunder or balk when lightning split the skies with yellow and fuchsia. In fact he didn’t seem particularly concerned at all to have been abandoned in a hollow at the base of a tree. She felt her mouth tighten, anxiety needling at her thoughts. “You shouldn’t be out here.” She told him quietly, clenching and unclenching her jaw, her words muddled by the thick twisted muscle of her mutilated face. “You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
Unlike Perun, or even Elanor for that matter, whose ears were pricked unabashedly forward and her tail wagging impatiently against her hocks, the storm made Else want to crawl inside her skin and hide, it made her want to find Caius that much more. There was so much power, so much strength, and it felt more tangible than the ground beneath her feet. She wondered fleetingly if she had always felt this way, felt this cowed, or if this too had something more to do with the magician and his digging through her brain.
Another crash of thunder drew her closer to the children, and she swore she could feel the remnants rattling her bones until they shuddered and gave out, turning to dust within the leather of her flesh. She blinked. Inhaled. Considered instead the Desert. Caius. She didn’t find and sudden strength, any magical solutions, but it was enough to quell the chatter of her teeth as she drew even closer to both children, noticing at last with a small, smothered gasp the stray strands of static crawling over his skin.
Surprise gave way to shock, which in turn made room for that fear to find new purchase in the treachery of her thoughts. Her single eye swept first to Elanor, who seemed decidedly fine, even delighted, and then up the trunk of the tree as if she expected it to suddenly burst into flames. But it didn’t. For long, impossible seconds, nothing happened. And nothing continued to happen, nothing but the conversation and laughter that seemed to being flowing easily between Elanor and the boy.
She heard a word, a name she realized as she sifted through the content, and held to it fast. “Perun,” she said softly, touching her lips to Elanor’s neck, “we’ll wait with you here until your mother comes back.” She had all but forgotten her effort to hide the wreckage of a face that had never known the flawless beauty of infancy. “You can call me Else.”
She noticed almost immediately how the boy didn’t flinch beneath the rain, didn’t tremble with the crash of thunder or balk when lightning split the skies with yellow and fuchsia. In fact he didn’t seem particularly concerned at all to have been abandoned in a hollow at the base of a tree. She felt her mouth tighten, anxiety needling at her thoughts. “You shouldn’t be out here.” She told him quietly, clenching and unclenching her jaw, her words muddled by the thick twisted muscle of her mutilated face. “You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
Unlike Perun, or even Elanor for that matter, whose ears were pricked unabashedly forward and her tail wagging impatiently against her hocks, the storm made Else want to crawl inside her skin and hide, it made her want to find Caius that much more. There was so much power, so much strength, and it felt more tangible than the ground beneath her feet. She wondered fleetingly if she had always felt this way, felt this cowed, or if this too had something more to do with the magician and his digging through her brain.
Another crash of thunder drew her closer to the children, and she swore she could feel the remnants rattling her bones until they shuddered and gave out, turning to dust within the leather of her flesh. She blinked. Inhaled. Considered instead the Desert. Caius. She didn’t find and sudden strength, any magical solutions, but it was enough to quell the chatter of her teeth as she drew even closer to both children, noticing at last with a small, smothered gasp the stray strands of static crawling over his skin.
Surprise gave way to shock, which in turn made room for that fear to find new purchase in the treachery of her thoughts. Her single eye swept first to Elanor, who seemed decidedly fine, even delighted, and then up the trunk of the tree as if she expected it to suddenly burst into flames. But it didn’t. For long, impossible seconds, nothing happened. And nothing continued to happen, nothing but the conversation and laughter that seemed to being flowing easily between Elanor and the boy.
She heard a word, a name she realized as she sifted through the content, and held to it fast. “Perun,” she said softly, touching her lips to Elanor’s neck, “we’ll wait with you here until your mother comes back.” She had all but forgotten her effort to hide the wreckage of a face that had never known the flawless beauty of infancy. “You can call me Else.”