here is the repeated image of a lover destroyed; sidra

[Cordis]

It is both strange and dangerous, to be so empty. She is empty because the years have carved out parts of her – He took her childhood, perhaps even her humanity. Spyndle took her heart, her love, broke every rib in her ribcage on the way to pulling it out (metaphorically, though she wishes she spoke literally, she would have given her everything in her body). Perse took her heart too, in a different way, a different love, the way mothers love their children. All that is left of her now are the poisoned parts, the dark and rotting cancers within her that no one wanted to reclaim. All that’s left of her emptied shell is a virulent darkness that scars even her. She was wicked to the boy, a monster, and she knows that. She knows there was pleasure in the way she burnt him. She knows it was wrong. She knows she enjoyed it. She is a rare and dangerous thing in Beqanna – a magician in her nascence. She does not know what brews beneath her, she knows only of the lightning, knows she is a silver color like molten steel. (She gleams and hurts the eye, but when she was with her gold girl, it had been electrum, had been alchemy.) The lightning once came in bursts, like a temper. Now it remains, a steady undercurrent. She electrifies herself like a fence, guards herself against being touched. She likes the low buzzing noise, like static. It drowns thoughts. Sometimes. Not always. Thoughts slip in, they always do. Their faces, their names. The boy’s screams. She doesn’t focus on this. She focuses on the lightning. The buzzing. The heat, the kind that should burn her but instead feels warm, like an embrace. She is so focused on not thinking that she doesn’t see the girl until she’s almost upon her. The girl is a bit odd looking, black with a shock of white mane and tail. For a moment she reminds her, achingly, of her first daughter, the dark girl with silver hair. “Hello,” she says, and she must be a terrible sight, silver and buzzing electric, a woman made empty save for the darkest parts of her. c o r d i s she said it was a mistake to let them burn her at the stake and she learned a lesson back there in the flames

[Sidra]

She roams aimlessly, letting her feet take her all across Beqanna.

She feels numb, purposeless. She’d been completely useless when the Chamber had invaded the Gates, had let them get away with burning her home and kidnapping her mother. Even now, months later, there’s nothing she can do. The Gates is only just managing to rise from the ashes, and her mother is still held captive by the Chamber. She hasn’t done anything. But she can’t do anything.

Her feet drag her into the meadow, though she barely notices it. She remembers the look of despair and resignation on her mother’s face as she’d walked off with the Chamber stallion. If only Sidra had been able to help …

She’s so immersed in the memory that she almost runs into the silver mare. But at the last moment, the sun reflecting off the dazzling coat catches her attention. “Oh! Sorry!” Then she stops, really seeing what’s in front of her.

The mare is … indescribable. Sidra’s breath catches in her throat as she stares, open-mouthed at the creature. She’s seen odd colours before - her brother and and father are tinted with a pale shade of blue - but this is something else. Something beautiful. And there’s something else about her too. Something she’s never felt before. Something … electric and powerful.

She takes a faltering step forward, still staring. She wants to reach out and touch that brilliant coat, but she knows that would be weird, uncomfortable. And she doesn’t want to do anything to make her leave. Then she realizes the mare is speaking. “I … hello. I’m Sidra.”

Sidra

the wild child of jason x fiasko