She doesn't want to be here.
The only thing holding her here is Lilli. This is not home, and she would only stay as long as she had to. This is not the same Beqanna she has left. There is no Kensa, the Hyaline mountains do not sing her name. Elaina is here to find her crimson cousin and her alone. Taiga is not her home, has never been her home, and neither was Beqanna. (The only thing here that was home was her cousin with blue bells for eyes.) She didn't want to be here. She didn't belong here.
“I think it’s a lot to ask to belong anywhere.” In the moment, Michael had sounded so wise, but as she stands in the forest of Taiga, in Beqanna, Elaina knows more than ever that Terrastella is is where she belongs—and here, she does not. She looks different, she is older, she no longer has wind blown hair from Hyaline mountains, but instead there are wildflowers tangled in her mane and her skin smells like sea salt. Her eyes are no longer fire, but instead are bright like a blue sky day. She thinks back to those words and thinks perhaps, maybe Michael was not as wise as he had seemed with his golden skin soaked in ocean water and sand clinging to him frantically. She thinks now though, that maybe it was just that somber smile and those bright eyes that made him appear to be so.
"I know that look, what are you thinking of?”
“Is it wrong to say too many things?”
Maybe it is wrong, as she sifts through the trees and the fog. She knows this land as well as she knows Terrastella, Hyaline, Paraiso, and so many others. Taiga had never been her home, but it always contained that red haired fragment of her heart. They had carved out a portion of the forest, replicating a fort they had spent far too much time in when they had been younger. A fort that has long overgrown with moss and time. She moves gracefully, over fallen logs through the blindingly dark night. It is a dance she knows all too well.
“I’’ll tell you, but only after you dance with me.”
“A dance for a name then, but you will have to teach me.”
And she had. Under the stars in the embers of the bonfire, Elaina had moved her feet and twirled body, rolled her hips and lost herself to the music that felt liked fire in her veins. That same fire ignites her now. It singes and burns and Elaina can feel it spreading slowly from her limbs to her spine, to her heart, and it blazes there, inside her chest until she can no longer feel the cold air.
“By Her hand, come inside.”
“Thank you, it is a cold day.”
A chilling autumn breeze brushes by her, running its hand fragment with pine though those creamy locks. It is strange being back here, the earthquake rolling down her spine tells her as much. But, Elaina knows, this is not about her, there is something else. There are flowers as she passes the same ones that grow in the gardens on her own home, the same one Elaina had planted because they reminded her so much of Lilli and where Lilli had chosen to stay.
“So you must be a member of Dusk? Or am I severely lost?”
“Yes, this is the one and only Dusk Court.”
She thinks back to that day in the portal. The words spat between each other had stung. They rest on a heart so scared that Elaina cannot tell you which they are. There is still a bitter taste upon her tongue from the own words she had spoken from hurt and shame. There is the sound of crashing waves echoing through the trees and Elaina thinks maybe this is it, maybe she has found her. But Elaina is used to disappointment, it settles comfortably in her heart like a familiar friend you wish would just go away. And perhaps, this time, it finally listened, for it rids itself against her heart and hope bursts forward as a girl of red hair appears within her sight.
“I found you.”
“I’m glad you did.”
This is one of the manny things they have in common, everyone can always find them at the end of the world with an ocean laid out before them like ill thought out plans. She finds Lilli just as he had found her only days earlier, hugging to the ocean like a lifeline. There are a lot of thing she could say in this moment, as she comes out from the trees to see her cousin standing there looking out across the ocean. She could say she was sorry, for upsetting her the last time they saw each other. She could promise her that everything was going to get better. She could tell her how much she loved her, how much Lilli meant to her.
“You look so dramatic, Lilli.”
Of course, she chooses none of the earlier options.
“You’ve always had a gift for staring longingly across vast expanses of water.” Elaina says coming to rest at her cousin’s side, blinking matching blue eyes in her direction. It is only then the fire cools in her chest and she feels the chill of the sea air. She can taste the salt on her tongue and if she blinks for a second too long, she thinks she is back home, instead of here. Even if she closes her though, she can feel Lilli’s presence beside her, and that is what always brings her back.
“Lilli, you’re my best friend, you know that right?”
"Your mine too. I couldn't do this without you, Elaina. I'd be lost without you.”
She doesn't want to be here.
tried to keep her quiet, but she's screaming inside me
@lilliana
(just your casual pop up post)