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.

Regret is an emotion Camelia feels often. Sometimes she wonders if it is woven into the fiber of her bones. She regrets many things in her well-worn life – the regret of not being good enough for Heaven’s Gates, the regret of not being a good enough mother for her children, the regret of not being a good enough lover for her Mast, the regret of not being a good enough daughter for her parents. She often wonders if joy is woven into her body alongside regret, but that can be for a different discussion. No, regret is something Camelia has grown to live with. She feels as though she wasn’t good enough.

At least, she thought that until most recently.

Over her years of seclusion, Camelia began to dive deeper into herself than she had before. She took out the soft, delicate parts of her heart and examined them with great care. She decided what she wanted to change and what she didn’t. She figured out what made her into the woman she is now and who had influenced that. She learned more about herself than she ever had during her childhood, her relationship with Mast, her ruling of the Gates, or her parenting with Finner and Topsail.

But regret is the emotion that rides on her tears now as she clings to the Mother Tree. Her lips move in a silent prayer of thankfulness for everything her beloved Tree gave her and for the magic that used to flow through the kingdom. With her eyes tightly closed and her focus drawn toward her thoughts and saddened feelings, Camelia doesn’t notice the stallion approaching her until he speaks. Her slender body startles and she shifts closer to the silent, unmoving tree before twisting her delicate head in the direction of the speaker.

He looks as though he belongs in the Gates and Camelia’s mind instantly relaxes. Warm brown eyes look over the stallion in a moment of consideration. “What happened?” Her voice is throaty and ragged, rough from lack of use over the years and also from her emotions. She swallows hard, forcing away the rest of her anger, regret, sadness, and grief. Camelia can save it for another time. Gathering her mind and thoughts together, the once-queen takes a step away from the massive tree. “I’m Camelia,” she offers. She supposes names are as good a place as ever to start.

Camelia