Behind her she can hear the water lapping at the coast, she can hear the ebb and flow and all the cracking sounds as the drift ice floats and breaks… the slamming sound at it crashes in on itself and forms impossibly large sheets. It’s almost mechanical in a way, almost metallic or akin to the twanging of wires snapping and bending, and in a way this frightens her- it blends together with shrill gales and sounds like the screams of beasts she cannot know: creatures whose teeth and claws will stalk her, even in her dreams… and she is afraid.
Weary, tired, and afraid: a creature so sick and ragged that she might collapse at the gust and its cruel warmth; but she remains standing and looking out across the blanket of snow and ice- across the vast expanse of the northern portion of the Isle. Red berries break periodically through the white, through the bleak and sun-laden wilds, and she sees something that the Fairies had all but asked of her to see before… one she created.
Paths, two paths.
Snow packed down and a semblance of what could be seen as walls forming to create impressions of walkways. Her eyes trailing along each but there is little to be seen ahead of herself as the white out conditions worsen and the raging storm bears its breath down upon them all: these ragged, wet, and shaggy beasts of the wild whose hearts pound and minds race with a mixture of emotions.
Had she the perception to think of it, Briella might’ve sworn too… that this ran the risk and splintering or bruising the weary soul with a dark inkling of doubt and fear; but she a child, and while clever- not so much a great philosopher.
She does, however, have someone else. The darkly colored man whose shadows had been stripped of him and he who was left naked and skinny, sickly, and vulnerable. Ether, she thinks to herself, claims to have been sent by her family- and so she endears herself to his side and presses into him for warmth and support as her tiny legs burn and ache… as they shiver and shake from fever and the wintry chill of the Isle.
Santana, Wane, Eszka, Leilan, and Ether- faces and voices she knows, people who had joined her: those who comforted and consoled- watched while they all sought the same goals and desire. She can only do so much through and to see them on the shore is enough to stir the war-drum like pounding in her chest… the bravery and iron in her spine, and the steadiness and sureness of her thoughts and what she must do.
“Okay,” she speaks up quietly and softly- without hint of malice or tension: only the tranquility and calm that allows her to speak over the shrieking wind. “I wish everyone luck, I don’t know this part- I’m sorry… please don’t be mad. We’re going to do it, okay? We can help- yeah we can.” for a moment it’s almost a question that she answers herself, a likelihood result of the chaos in her young mind.
Still, nothing can do will chase away the blight and bleakness, the impenetrable white that manifests and blurs her vision as she walks and desperately tries to orient herself. She can no longer see the shore or hear the drift ice: instead there is almost nothing unless it is right in front of her and in that, she finds herself at a loss… so she tracks to the paths and stands before moving: desperate and feeling a frenzy in the corners and shadows of her mind: a need to know, to orient herself.
Yet? Briella can not.
Instead she takes a breath, a moment: time to endure the wind and frost as it batters her sooty chestnut body and grays the fur with crystals and icy reminds of its danger. With, or without, Ether- she carries on and steps suddenly down the left-most pathway; but as predicted the moment her small hooves leave the safety of the stony shore the world behind her is swallowed in insufferable white.
Not even a shadow stirs.
Blinded and tired her body is tugged suddenly, and the wind bellows and berates her so hard that she stumbles and nearly falls into the vast drifts and mountainous dunes. Her steps are not straight, no, her path is suddenly curved and blown this way and that: tumbled and violent. She whimpers and makes several distinct ‘ow’ or pain related sounds as the agony sets in and her muscles are torn and worn: weary and so stiff that even the bones have started to ache.
She takes two steps and is driven four to the right, and then another three to the left as she tries and tries: as Briella pressed her ears backwards and tries to lower her spindly legs down to the ground: to get lower than the snowy walls in order to stop the wind and its vicious squalling.
Grit was the only gift she had, nothing magical; but something so ingrained into her being that it seemed to drive her even when her mind began to think that it might be best to turn back… grit stopped her, courageous and selfless frit. Tenacity and a ferocious desire to fulfill the thing she has started: Briella should be dead by all accounts… she should starving and sick: bloodied and rotting with maggot and worm, and ravaged by hunger.
For all that? She still does not fear nor turn back. Not when cramp and muscle tension beneath her skin pierce her, when blood drips down her tiny maw from those flared nostrils, as hunger and thirst seize her primal reaches of the brain: no.
She must go on. She must go and try: she has to give them at least that, because hope is what burns brightest, a wildfire of impossible size that roars inside her soul.
For all her suffering, she endures: because they, they are worth it, and they need this help- this chance. Thus Briella endures the shrill wind and razor-like frost, the impossible blindness and breath that feels like it might rip her apart with every inhale into her heavy lungs. To the left, she thinks, that is where she goes: where she must, because she cannot take both, and the Fairies did not tell her to make her own this time.
“Fairies?” she speaks up. “If something happens to me, please don’t let my family feel sad.”
Reality has stricken her, a hardness and coldness of thought: a realization of her own mortality, and even then in the small existential moment of dread and the impossibly agony of fear of her own demise, she tries to beg for the others, not for her own ease; but of someone else's.