[private] she keeps me alive; Ciri

[Leokadia]

she got blood cold as ice
and a heart made of stone

The night grows colder as Ciri tells Leokadia about the lives and worlds she has known before Beqanna. As steam begins to rise from the heart-shaped lake, the cremello listens as carefully as she can, learning of the Underneath and then the almost unfathomable star-like existence predating that. Though she tries only to listen, Leokadia feels vastly inexperienced in comparison. Her pale eyes flick from Ciri’s shining ones, down to the movement of her lips and back once more. Absorbing as much as she can about her friend’s history and wondering what she herself offers someone who has experienced so much. What need does the scarred, star-trailed woman have for a friend like her? Surely Ciri has known hundreds of far more interesting mares and stallions and other beings. It is the first time the little mare has considered herself against another, other than her mother.

She finds herself deficient yet again and yet doesn’t mind because Ciri remains right beside her, leans into her touch so that Lo can settle her cheek against the warm dark skin above the other mare’s shoulder. Even if she cannot find the right words to say, there is a rightness and warmth she feels through that touch, and for a moment she is certain it feels the same for the both of them.

She hasn’t the ability to tell Ciri what to do about her anger. Not honestly. Not without admitting to the hungry, furious, self-inflicted emptiness, she’s been carrying around for years. Their friendship edges her ever nearer the many things she’s managed not to feel for so long. Raising her head to meet the eyes that seek out her own, her ears turn back in dismay but she doesn’t say anything about the anger that clings to her friend. Only acknowledges it, eyes softening as she continues to leave room for that anger because it seems like it should be there and like it should be allowed to burn for a little while in the face of everything that has precipitated it. Leokadia takes a single step a little nearer, three of her pale hooves settling in the snow again as she reaches her muzzle out to Ciri’s. “Then let us go and rest. Let me watch over you now that I am here.” The pause is brief before she exhales another word. “Please.” Leokadia does not misunderstand, she knows her friend does not just refer to the weariness of her body. Her outside wing has drifted down to the earth as they’ve stood together talking but she settles it upon her back again, indicating a desire to leave the lake and the burning tree and find a place they may rest. “It seems to be a comfort to others, having someone to rest beside. I can be someone like that. For you.” Leokadia is careful with uttering the unfamiliar offering, hope tangled up with a strange twisting in her belly, anxiety, and something else that makes her heart race away once more. Her meaning is not veiled or intended to be more than an invitation to rest together and the safety that comes with it, her eyes guileless in her pretty sculpted face.

but she keeps me alive
she's the beast in my bones

Leokadia

@Ciri