 I can remember a time when I was so afraid when even my shadow wouldn't follow me The blonde girl had been thinking of her parents more and more as her time in Beqanna seemed to keep stretching forward. She wonders if they sit there together, side by side for eternity, surprised at what has happened to their little girl. How she grew, found her way to Murmuring Rivers, became a healer, wallowed in her grief, and found love, lost love, ran away again. What would they think? Would they be surprised, shocked, disappointed. They aren't here to tell her. When she looks at Kensa, she thinks, she looks like someone who would be a ruler, a leader, even a queen. Elaina remembers the first time she meet the ruler of Woodlands. She can remember thinking: He is a king. Her brow had furrowed because Caunion had not looked like a king. There had been nothing about him as impressive as Valerio had been, nor had he been graceful and as sharp as Aletta. He had not been hard and there had been a softness to him that Elaina did not fully trust in a leader. He would probably be weak, and had it not been for Aerwir, Elaina would have left the moment they met. Perhaps, it had been cruel of Elaina to make this impression right away, but the world had hardened Elaina to an extent, you cant be an orphan and live soft. She had left it to Caunion to prove his worth to her and build her respect as a leader. But she had been right all along. Broch came in the night and stole her away and Caunion never even gained the courage to right the wrong. Caunion had been a charmer, and Elaina had to wonder how many mares had fallen for his act. He played the part of knight very well. Elaina was sure, if she had been a damsel in distress she would have loved for him to rescue her. But she was not a damsel, and in times of distress she dressed herself up in an iron armor and charged her enemies head on. What she lacked in femininity and attraction she made up for in strength. “I have a lot of chapters already, and I am barely considered an adult,” she says with a huff of a laugh. “What is one more chapter?” She says with something of the equivalent of a shrug. “This place is far different than anywhere I have ever been,” she admits. The magic here, it was deeper than her home, as ancient as Windskeep, something that felt surprisingly comforting. “I thought I would just come to find Lilli, my cousin, but I cant shake this—feeling,” she says and she cannot elaborate because she isn't sure what that feeling is. She is…stunning is the only word that comes to Elaina’s mind. Perhaps it is cliche, and Kensa has probably heard it a thousand times, but Elaina cannot deny the awe struck look that ghosts her features like a cloud passing over the sun. “Thanks,” Elaina offers in response with a smile that softens the edges of her sharp, Spanish face. “I grew up being told I look like my mother, but I never quite minded being told that,” she says, but she doesn't add how there were times, when her death was fresh, each time she was told that, her heart would sink a little deeper, until she wasn't sure how she was going to pull it back up. Mountains. A lake. It all sounds too familiar and Elaina’s heart breaks because she knows what happens now. “I think…I would like that,” she says. “I was born in an ancient land with a waterfall so large that if you stood to close you could not hear your own thoughts,” she says, eyes glassy for a moment. “It was comforting, in a way.” She then turns to the field’s own falls before looking back at Kensa, each time taken back by the sheer beauty of the leader. “I’ve never been one to shy away from a new adventure, and Hyaline sounds like just the place.” benjamin and beylani's sunflower-girl |
@[Kensa]