10-16-2021, 11:02 AM
She is a stoic thing, Camellia.
She has always been colder than each of her three sisters, aloof, detached.
(She has loved them fiercely, but there has never been anything she has loved more than Winter. This is how it was always meant to be, though, and she is certain that her sisters love their own seasons just as much as she loves the Winter.)
But she softens here in front of this relative stranger, a kind of vulnerability, and she smiles something genuine. It is perhaps the only time she has ever softened because she has found Home, the only place in all of Beqanna that she truly belongs.
If she had not been so consumed by this happiness (although even her happiness is cold), she might have thought to be embarrassed by allowing him to witness this part of her.
She studies the landscape, the tundra and the angry mountains, and considers his answer. He is right, of course. There are so many places to find and explore. But this is the only place she was ever meant to find. This is the place that has been calling to her all along.
She nods but does not speak, aware that their definitions of homesick are not exactly the same, but how could they be? He is a thing of flesh and blood, just as she had been once, and she is something of snow and ice. As if she had been carved out of this landscape.
His question draws her attention back to him and she nods, glacial blue eyes glowing. She is not a sentimental thing, Camellia, but she exhales a breath that lingers in the air between them and says, “thank you.”
What else do you say to the one soul who showed you your home?
She has always been colder than each of her three sisters, aloof, detached.
(She has loved them fiercely, but there has never been anything she has loved more than Winter. This is how it was always meant to be, though, and she is certain that her sisters love their own seasons just as much as she loves the Winter.)
But she softens here in front of this relative stranger, a kind of vulnerability, and she smiles something genuine. It is perhaps the only time she has ever softened because she has found Home, the only place in all of Beqanna that she truly belongs.
If she had not been so consumed by this happiness (although even her happiness is cold), she might have thought to be embarrassed by allowing him to witness this part of her.
She studies the landscape, the tundra and the angry mountains, and considers his answer. He is right, of course. There are so many places to find and explore. But this is the only place she was ever meant to find. This is the place that has been calling to her all along.
She nods but does not speak, aware that their definitions of homesick are not exactly the same, but how could they be? He is a thing of flesh and blood, just as she had been once, and she is something of snow and ice. As if she had been carved out of this landscape.
His question draws her attention back to him and she nods, glacial blue eyes glowing. She is not a sentimental thing, Camellia, but she exhales a breath that lingers in the air between them and says, “thank you.”
What else do you say to the one soul who showed you your home?
@Nashua