02-12-2018, 06:50 PM
It seems an eternity has passed, and then some. She has died and been reborn, loved and lost and given too much. Always too much. She has been shredded and sown-back together again like a ragdoll. And she is star-spun now, distant and venerable.
She has tried tying herself to the intricate politics of Tephra, a drowning sailor’s last attempt at breathing, and though she is grateful to be offered a home among its shores, she has yet to find peace there. Oh, she is elated to be reunited with her first love; the sea. And she had sung its praises in a language none but a seagull would understand. But to them she is dream-song and star-shine, the aloof girl with forlorn smiles and kind words in tow. They do not know of her secrets; the way her eternity-eyes always seem to stray in search of dark-skinned boys with self-loathing and angst in their eyes.
She has avoided the meadow like one would avoid the plague. Never again has she visited that magical place, never again has she sought the company of the willow with his tears and the chipper faces of wildflowers. For to do so would be to admit that he is gone forever, and it is a dream she cannot bear to part with.
To clear her mind, she shakes her delicate, noble head. The silver-wire mane she spites flitters, above her neck, and there is a soft black scar etching its way across her crest. A small keepsake to remind her how dying feels like.
She wonders then, what he would think if he happened upon her now, broken, marred and distant as the stars that cover her body. Would he still think himself so unworthy, or would the tables have turned? Oh, she strains! – Strains with all the power of the stars; bound now and infuriated in her blood, to not think of him. But her eyes are galaxies of hurt and despair, and she knows then that only nightmares will dog her footsteps tonight.
So she leaves beach and sea and kingdom behind and instead she seeks the comfort of the leaping laughing streams of the river deep in the forest. But the river is a study in war-torn grey tonight, mirroring only the cold twinkle of stars. She approaches solemnly – listless, if not exhausted, with a humble hang of an otherwise proud head. This was not the sea-goddess, she thinks as she watches her own reflection in the still waters. This was not the daughter of star-glimmer and moonlight; this was a child with the world upon her shoulders, with regret hanging languidly from her features – a child seeking a redemption which would now never come, for never again would she pass the borders into that other world, the other world which had expelled those miscreants, the other world which had delivered her into the arms of death.