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    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura


    [private]  be still my foolish heart, selaphiel
    #1
    este
    She has been like this for so long that she does not remember the first few days of being alive.

    They feel like a fever-dream—which she has plenty of—but she has asked her mother before if it was real. If she had really once grown wings and a halo just like hers and Sela’s, and radiated a soft, blush-pink glow. Even though her mother reassures her that it was real, it doesn’t seem like it. Those days were so long ago, and she has not been able to shift into an angel since; not ever since this sickness consumed her. 

    The memories no longer even feel like her own; they are just ideas that Ryatah has whispered in her ear, like some sort of strange prayer. 
    Like if she can bribe Este with this idea of her being a living angel that she will not drift away and become a dead one. 

    The darkness has been here since she was born, and it sank into her bones, like lead. Every passing day she grew heavier and heavier, until she couldn’t walk, couldn’t breathe. She did not realize there was a desperate need for light inside of her, that she was losing a war against the shadows trying to suffocate her.  She no longer had the strength to be an angel like Sela. She did not have the strength to follow him, no matter how badly she wanted to. Sometimes when she was sleeping curled on the ground by her mother she thought she could feel the icy touch of her brother against her cheek, but by the time she managed to pull herself out of the sleep she was nearly permanently anchored to, he would be gone.

    Sela was gone, and now her mother was too, and even though Ryatah had promised that Atrox would not let anything happen to her, she still felt entirely alone.

    She is not sure how long she had been asleep this time, but when she drags herself out of it and finds that her mother is still gone, there is a faint thread of panic creeping past the exhaustion she was drowning in. Her mother has never been gone for more than a few hours, ever. Weakly she lifts her head, blinking her doe-like eyes. She does not have to look hard to confirm Ryatah is not there; her glow always gave her away, and around her, there is only the endless night. “Atrox?” she asks into the dark, waiting for the familiar bright yellow eyes to blink open. When they don’t and she is met with only shadows she curls back into the ground, but despite her weakness, her heart is a restless beat in her chest.

    She has never been left alone for this long, and somewhere inside of her, there is some instinctual drive that tells her to get up.

    Forcing herself to stand on trembling, undependable legs, she stares again into the dark. She thinks she can see something pale, something faintly glowing. She doesn’t think it is Ryatah; it looks too small, and the faintest spark of hope flickers to life behind her breastbone. “Sela….?” 

    who could ever leave me, darling,
    but who could stay?
    #2
    THESE DAYS I DON’T PRAY WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES
    I JUST BITE MY TONGUE A BIT HARDER
    Mazikeen had told him the good news and he had to see them: his mother and his sister. Only hours ago, as the white mare had emerged from the darkness encircled in her great ring of fire, he had feared that she was coming to tell him that it was time for him to go and that he would never see them again. And now, now his weary heart is buoyed by the news that he will never have to leave them, that he will not have to live out the rest of his days near the edge of the forest trying not to draw any attention to himself. 

    He moves quickly through Hyaline, unconcerned about who might see him. No one will send him away, no one will tell him that he is not welcome. (He is not happy, Sela, but this is perhaps the closest this angel cast from ice will ever get.) 

    But there is no glow to guide him to the place where Este lies. Ryatah is gone. In this darkness, Sela struggles to find his way. It is the lingering scent of death that guides him. Even through the darkness, he senses his twin’s stirring. (He has been relieved of the weight of worry in regards to his future in Hyaline, but it had been nothing compared to the weight of this.) Instinctively, he slows and his heart twinges and spasms. How it aches as he draws nearer.

    There is no pain like the pain of knowing that she will die and there is nothing he can do to stop it. 

    She calls to him and he smiles so sadly, the smell of her death filling him up. “Hi, Este,” he calls back, moving closer still. His breath is so thin that it makes him faint, his eyelids fluttering heavy. His eyes burn.

    I miss you,” he tells her and his throat aches with the truth of it. “Are you doing okay?” He asks it, though he’s acutely aware that she’s not. 

    Selaphiel



    @[Este]




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