These upheavals always bring faces, new and old, crawling from the crevices to claim bits and pieces of the land and history for themselves in the chaos. She has seen it hundreds of times before, an old song and dance. And she is not naive and foolish enough to believe they would be entirely safe here.
But she would watch this land, protect it, because it is hers now. Just as Nerine is hers.
And so when the woman crawls from the sea onto the icy spit of land, Heartfire watches. The stranger says nothing as she settles onto the beach, but the craving in her eye speaks for itself. She comes alone however, and there is no power in loneliness, no matter how much magic she might retain. But Heartfire, for all her faults, has always been very good at reading the larger picture. At finding where such things fit into the grand scheme of life and survival.
So, no matter this strangers intentions, perhaps she could be useful.
Settling her charge into a small nook she had created in the earth for safekeeping, she turns to make her way along the shores. To confront the stranger invading her realm’s newest shores. Her breath rasps in her lungs as she walks, but she ignores it. Just as she had ignored the blood that would occasionally drip from her nostrils, just as she had ignore the fever that wracks her body in sporadic waves. There is no time for weakness here, and she would not succumb. But the toll shows in her body. She had always been a slim mare, narrow-framed and leanly muscled. But now she borders upon sickly, her ribs pressing against her skin, withers and hip-bones sharpening beneath the thickness of her winter coat. The loss of weight emphasizes the subtle rounding of her stomach, the only part of her that had gained anything.
And she ignores that too, just as she does everything else that had gone wrong with her body. She hadn’t the time, not now, to consider the ramifications of her thoughtless actions that stormy night.
No, in this moment, she can only think of the protection of her kingdom and her young charge. And so she approaches the stranger, her blue eyes steely as she fixes them upon the woman, expression still and unreadable. She studies her for a long moment before finally offering her greeting, such as it is. “Do you know where you have come?”
i see your sins
and i want to set them free
