Time is cruel to her.
Not in the way it is cruel to so many things, the years piling on until they crumble. Cordis is untouched in that way, ageless in the way of magic things. Time’s cruelty here is more subtle, as the years clamber on and she forgets. Not big things, but the little ones, the minutiae.
She knows she loves – loved – the curve of her smile, but can no longer recall the exact angle of it.
She knows she loves – loved – how sunlight had looked in her hair, but she cannot recall it’s exact shade, only a general color.
And for all her magic this is one thing she cannot stop, it feels sometimes as if memories are water in her cupped hands, spilling out.
And what is there to replace it? What has she done, since? So little. Drifted as aimless as a dandelion seed in the wind. There’d been conversations, short and stuttered, but she is not someone who easily invites conversation, with her steeled gaze and the low crackle of electricity on her skin. She is a warning sign writ large, Cordis, and it is exhausting.
She’s back at the river. It seems she always returns here, as if it might spark more memory back into her. Not that this is the same river, but still, there is a ragged sort of peace in the way the water moves, how it’s cool to the touch. She watches as the sun plays on its shifting surface, looks for the darting fish in its depths. It is quiet here, save for the faint crackle of her lightning-skin and the rush of the river, and to anyone who did not know her, she might even look peaceful.
I’ll touch you all and make damn sure
Cordis
that no one touches me