She remembers so little.
The warmth that her sister’s venom had chased through her veins.
A brilliant flash of light and then some great garden where the roses had flung themselves at her feet. A world without pain or hunger or the bitter pang of thirst.
She awakens and thinks it a dream. Because she does not remember how she had traveled, tirelessly, to the gate and then emerged from it again. She does not remember how it felt to return to her mortal body. That sharp sting of being alive. The roses were a fever dream, the gnashing of her sister’s teeth, the faint, faint sound of her mother screaming as the world went dark.
How cliché.
She awakens and rises from where she had lay dying there on the forest floor. She stretches the weary limbs, thinks the stiffness odd. She shakes off the dream, never one for dwelling, and begins to move. There, on her neck where she cannot see them, are her mortal wounds. The place where all the poison went in. And how like her, not to fight it. To simple stare into the darkness as her sister took shape, beckoned her to come fight, and she had remained motionless. Because she had known.
But she has forgotten now. Or, at the very least, written it off as a peculiar dream.
She moves into the sunlight, lets its warmth sink bone-deep. She loiters there, turns her gaze to and fro, realizes that she does not know the way home. She drags in a shuddering breath then, summoning what little courage has ever existed at the pit of her. Too little to convince her to rail against the death that had come for her but enough to convince her to approach a stranger nearby.
“Sorry to bother you,” she says and surprises herself with the rust in her throat. How long had she been asleep? “Do you know the way to Tephra?”
The warmth that her sister’s venom had chased through her veins.
A brilliant flash of light and then some great garden where the roses had flung themselves at her feet. A world without pain or hunger or the bitter pang of thirst.
She awakens and thinks it a dream. Because she does not remember how she had traveled, tirelessly, to the gate and then emerged from it again. She does not remember how it felt to return to her mortal body. That sharp sting of being alive. The roses were a fever dream, the gnashing of her sister’s teeth, the faint, faint sound of her mother screaming as the world went dark.
How cliché.
She awakens and rises from where she had lay dying there on the forest floor. She stretches the weary limbs, thinks the stiffness odd. She shakes off the dream, never one for dwelling, and begins to move. There, on her neck where she cannot see them, are her mortal wounds. The place where all the poison went in. And how like her, not to fight it. To simple stare into the darkness as her sister took shape, beckoned her to come fight, and she had remained motionless. Because she had known.
But she has forgotten now. Or, at the very least, written it off as a peculiar dream.
She moves into the sunlight, lets its warmth sink bone-deep. She loiters there, turns her gaze to and fro, realizes that she does not know the way home. She drags in a shuddering breath then, summoning what little courage has ever existed at the pit of her. Too little to convince her to rail against the death that had come for her but enough to convince her to approach a stranger nearby.
“Sorry to bother you,” she says and surprises herself with the rust in her throat. How long had she been asleep? “Do you know the way to Tephra?”
@[Beelzebub]
