all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
She can’t bring herself to face the Meadow. What had once been her old home, her favorite place to stargaze, has now become a living nightmare. A place where all she can recall is the smile on Gale’s face when he had first seen her stars to the bloodied grin he gave her as he tasted her blood and magic before she died amongst the lush summer grass. It had been months since her encounter with the Curse, months since she had pulled the starlit shield down around her, months since her legs had been broken and healed.
She still remembers the fairies request on the Mountain but can find little motivation to seek death again. So she remains quiet and listless on the Isle until Nashua returns. One morning she simply finds her hooves moving on a mission of their own accord. Eventually she finds her way to the cold Forest, her heavily scarred legs pushing through the layers of snow with little difficulty. There is a moment when she looks through the trees and remembers the eternal darkness, the monster she had fought with Basilica when her star shield had been lost. It’s a memory that makes her bite at the inside off her lip, as she tries to remember what she had been before her death. Had she come back the same? Or was she wrong now?
Had death changed her?
She’s not sure anymore.
She can feel an edge within her that had been missing before, a hardness around her softer parts that makes her feel like something has changed. That she’s not quite the same Ciri that had been bled and broken on those meadow hills months before. The swirling silver of her eyes even looks different now, a sharper metallic hue that seems to pierce to the heart of a person when she whirls her gaze upon them. They had always said that the Northerners were a hardy breed and perhaps she had just adapted enough to the Isle to make that ring true for her too. But she suspects that there is something within her that had been shattered the moment Not Gale had carved her open, the moment he had hit her in the temple. Something he had managed to sever deep inside of her, something that had once tied into a kinder and tender version of herself.
All she feels now is that bubbling anger that bubbles in her stomach like the popping hot gas of the stars that twinkle around her. It’s the only heat that competes with the ice that frosts over the tundra of her soul. The part of her that is now afraid to love and care if it only leads to pain and destruction. If it means dying again for nothing.
She still remembers the fairies request on the Mountain but can find little motivation to seek death again. So she remains quiet and listless on the Isle until Nashua returns. One morning she simply finds her hooves moving on a mission of their own accord. Eventually she finds her way to the cold Forest, her heavily scarred legs pushing through the layers of snow with little difficulty. There is a moment when she looks through the trees and remembers the eternal darkness, the monster she had fought with Basilica when her star shield had been lost. It’s a memory that makes her bite at the inside off her lip, as she tries to remember what she had been before her death. Had she come back the same? Or was she wrong now?
Had death changed her?
She’s not sure anymore.
She can feel an edge within her that had been missing before, a hardness around her softer parts that makes her feel like something has changed. That she’s not quite the same Ciri that had been bled and broken on those meadow hills months before. The swirling silver of her eyes even looks different now, a sharper metallic hue that seems to pierce to the heart of a person when she whirls her gaze upon them. They had always said that the Northerners were a hardy breed and perhaps she had just adapted enough to the Isle to make that ring true for her too. But she suspects that there is something within her that had been shattered the moment Not Gale had carved her open, the moment he had hit her in the temple. Something he had managed to sever deep inside of her, something that had once tied into a kinder and tender version of herself.
All she feels now is that bubbling anger that bubbles in her stomach like the popping hot gas of the stars that twinkle around her. It’s the only heat that competes with the ice that frosts over the tundra of her soul. The part of her that is now afraid to love and care if it only leads to pain and destruction. If it means dying again for nothing.
-- Ciri
Open to Any that can help her with her Mountain Quest to protect someone without using magic!