i will breathe the air (any)

[Camelia]

I will run the streets and hostile lands, I will touch the rain with all I have
I will breathe the air, to scream it loud. My feet will never touch the ground.

She visits Heaven’s Gates almost every night in her dreams. They are filled with memories of Camelia’s childhood. The most prominent are her mother’s lullaby’s softly cradling her into sleep under a starry sky and the Mother Tree’s watchful gaze, playing hide and seek with Mast and tumbling after him when they trip together, and whispering her deepest secrets and hopes and fears into the Mother Tree’s comforting embrace. She dances through the willow tree forests in between the waking hours, she snorts and prances and sings with the woodland creatures who love their home as much as she does, she wades through the slender streams and watches the silvery fish scatter from her happy feet.

Camelia’s favorite time of day is when she falls asleep, because it brings her back to the nostalgic places where her soul was content, her heart was happy, and her mouth was smiling. She still smiles every so often, in her little corner of Beqanna, but they are not the bright, sunshine-filled grins they used to be.

Her mouth has gray around the edges as she enters Heaven’s Gates for the first time in years. She can’t remember the last time she smelled the honeysuckle or spotted the Mother Tree’s mammoth form in the near distance. Her heart aches with a sudden pang as she walks past the borders. There is something different. There is something less alive. There is something missing. Camelia’s warm brown eyes turn toward the Mother Tree and she quickly begins to make her way toward it. Her feet break out into a fast run, joints mildly growling in soreness.

She knows she will feel the achiness more-so later, but she has more immediate charges.

When she reaches the Mother Tree, she knows. The heart of Heaven’s Gates – the solid beat of life, the place from which love flowed, the affectionate soul of the kingdom – is no longer alive. Something has happened to cease the life from the Tree’s warm embrace and Camelia feels her heart softly fracturing. The Mother Tree was perhaps the one true thing she knew she could rely on in her life – something she could rely on even more than herself.

A soft, choking cry leaves her slender throat and the once-queen moves to press her body alongside the massive trunk. Her heart aches, her soul mourns, her body shakes. Camelia simply sits under the unmoving limbs of the Tree, saying a silent eulogy of her own in a whispered voice, nose pressed close to the trunk she so dearly loves.

Camelia