10-10-2021, 12:47 PM
E
lliana, like Aela, will never understand her parents. Elena had become too far gone, drowned in the waters of her responsibility to her Court and so ruined by the love that she so craved. By her adoptive father, who Elli cannot depend upon because he knew the truth and he painted the picture of the perfect father. And her biological father, who she knows so little about, but knows enough, just enough, to not be entirely warmed by the memory of him.Elli watches Aela the way a bird might watch a stranger approaching, with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. “Watch the eyes, Elli, they tell you more than what you need to know.” Her mother told her. But Elliana can look at Aela anywhere but those eyes because every time she does an inferno lights through her skin like lightning. And one stroke of lightning does not have to lead anywhere, but to the next stroke of lightning. She should grow cold and turn to leave (there are so many times Elliana should have left but stayed, and so many times she should have stayed but left.) Aela is everything her mother raised her to hate, all the monsters of her stories. But she cannot hate her, not truly, because there is not enough room in her heart for hatred. It is a tiny thing that only holds love and loneliness, often at the same time and often to such a degree that, while outwardly she may seem blissful, she feels quite desperate for something new.
And then the first seeds of ambition plant themselves in the newly turned soil of Elliana’s heart.
Elli, the ocean moans and Elliana tilts her head up, eyes like mirrors to the blue sky, and feels not for the first time that this is the beginning of a thing far greater than she can ever hope to understand. Pieces of eternity line the edges line the edges of her life like tall picket boards, fencing the memories in lest they be forgotten, even if she tries so hard to do so. A featherlight breath rushed past her lips, one she had not known she was holding back. Her smile wings into a grin. She thinks of all the things she's know that are beautiful and violent enough to take the world (like her mother’s dragon, like the sea, like her heart). Something in her small chest bellows and makes her skin tremble like a leaf learning how to turn belly up for the rain. Not right now, she says coolly. Though I want to ask them just how much they can burn. If you just let them loose. Elliana was started by a flame, by a woman of light and a man of shadow. The shadows gather around her as if itching to heal all which Aela has not set into ash. I know there is someone terrified of them and all you stand for. She says and moves closer. I know there is another who admires them, admires you. She stays put. And I know there are still others who are building a defense against them—against you. She pauses and for the first time looks into those blue eyes and sees not her mother, reflecting back at her, but just blue, blue, blue fire. I know things I shouldn’t.
Elliana has been raised by a queen of lambs. She wants to know now how to be a lion.
Her teeth ache, her heart aches, every bit of her aches. She bites her cheek until blood blooms metallic on her tongue. The sting of iron settles her.
She inhales and it’s silver.
I’m Elliana.
And she does not ask who she is.
Not yet, not yet, not yet.
..but nightmares are dreams too.