[private] Why Bother? [Cress]

[Cress]

cRess

like a house on fire we're up in flames; i'd burn here if that's what it takes
It has been days—weeks, even—since the genie woman healed her of the plague, and even though her symptoms have healed without a trace, she finds it hard to believe that the plague is truly gone from her veins. The weakness, the blood, the fever, the shakes... gone, just like that. She had realized later that the fatigue wasn’t from the sickness itself—it was from within her, as she sapped all of her energy into keeping herself alive and well enough to put on the front for the others in the Resort. Tiphon had given her some of his own energy, true, but she had long since burned that up before even trying to heal Heartfire.

It’s terrifying to think that it nearly killed her. She is still young, and death is a haunting presence that had been hanging over her head without her even realizing it. Sure, she has lived and loved and mothered three children, but she is nowhere near ready to pass on into the next world. She has so much that she has left to do, so many things she wants to accomplish;

So many hearts and wounds she wants to heal.

Her golden wings catch her as she lands on the sandy shores of the river that borders the Forest and she, much like her polar bear daughter, is sorely tempted to splash up to her belly in order to cool off. It has been a hot summer in Beqanna this year and living in one of the southernmost tips of the land means that she swims in the rivers and ocean quite often to keep cool, using her powerful wings to float in the currents. She takes a few steps towards the water, but something—someone—draws her attention away.

A dappled stallion is lowering himself to the dirt, clearly as much over the heat of the day as she is, and her eyes widen as she recognizes a face from her childhood. He has grown and filled out and lightened some with age, but there’s no mistaking him. “Dalten,” she calls, praying that he remembers her, too. They had met as young adults, before Beqanna changed. Before the Dark God, and before the comfort of Flamevein’s fires. It all seems like so long ago now.

“How have you been?” she asks him, an echo of their first conversation. Please remember me.