baruch hashem [etro, vanquish]

[Yael]

Something happened recently; something that brought the spirit world far closer than it’s ever been before. Here, she can feel the difference. Here, she often thinks that she can see some wispy forms out of the corner of her eyes, as if the veil between the world is no more than a thin piece of gauze. Her skin tingles, and her eyes scan the desolate, gray area while she waits for Etro. Her daughter is her - their - anchor, the proverbial lantern lighting the way home, should anything bad happen. Yael doesn’t think it will, though she also doesn’t know what to do about Van’s body - will he have one? Will she have to build his flesh and bone again? Should she have a shell waiting for his soul to inhabit?

When Etro appears, Yael nudges her shoulder affectionately. There’s no use showing trepidation; it won’t help her and it won’t help Etro with her job either. She needs confidence from the both of them. There is power in faith. She tells their daughter to call her name every twenty breaths. It is morning, and she asks her to do it until sunset. If she can’t traverse the world of the dead and return in that amount of time, then there is no hope for her. She asks Etro to be patient and keep calm. And last but not least, she tells her not to worry - when has her mother ever failed?

Yael takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, using that extra, magic sight to look for the flickering separation of life and death. She’s looked for it before, and now that she knows what to look for, it is easy to find again. She cannot know what lies beyond it until she crosses, and so to any that may be watching with normal vision, the golden mare slowly disappears - head first, then neck and wings and torso, and finally her hindquarters. Yael has fully crossed over.

The world of the dead is different - it is gray and colorless, but still unusually full of life. She is an outsider and does not recognize the names or faces of the ghosts, though some are legends and some are heroes to their descendants back in life. For a moment, she considers looking for others who were - no, still are - dear to her; for Fictional and Nocturnal and Alysanne and her tribal family. But they will always be here, and she has had a long time to come to term with those deaths. Vanquish is another matter entirely. She is here for him because she knows he wasn’t ready to go. Because they weren’t finished yet. Because she wants him to know that she hasn’t forgotten him or resigned herself to his death, and that she would always do as she promised - everything she could for him.

If everything means bringing him back from the dead, then so be it.
“Vankish?” she calls into the crowd. “Vankish?” The golden once-Queen moves slowly through the crowds, calling out every couple of steps for her once-and-forever King.

Yael, guardian of the desert

[etro]

etro --

in the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon,
I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom

Her mother had asked, and of course Etro had said yes. She would have done it even if Yael had said that it would be dangerous. It was the least the mare could do after all that she had done wrong—and if there was even an inkling of a chance that it could be successful, it would be worth all of the risk. So she had embraced her mother and told her that she would meet her at the beach tomorrow. And then she had gone to where she slept every night. Not a home, not the desert, but at least a quiet, safe place to rest her head.

In the morning, nerves tightening her stomach, she had ventured to the beach—the first time that she had ever visited it. The sand is both achingly familiar and wholly different, but she cuts through it easily, finding joy in the rolling land beneath her. It seemed fitting that this is where her father would be found again. Because he would be found, she had to believe that. She had to believe in her mother’s power.

She closes her eyes when her mother tells her what to do, when she tells her not to worry (a kind gesture, but an empty one—when would her daughter not worry?), and when she shifts her attention from this world to the next. She feels the departure like a punch to the gut and her breath shakes, but she knows this is for the best. She knows that she has to let go of her magician mother if she wanted to find them both.

So, with silver-bell voice soft, she counts her breaths. At the twentieth, she whispers: “Yael.”
And then she counts again. Waiting for her parents to return to her.

-- vanquish and yael's forgotten trait-negating princess --

[Vanquish]

This is a place of starving souls.

And he doesn’t belong here.

He is no one here and can no longer even remember a name in which to answer to. He is nothing, just another blurry soul, dead-hearted and wandering, waiting. Years of unrequited, burning rage had numbed him quicker than the others – the others that were like him. Ones that still had debts to settle, others who refused to sever the tortuous thread of possibility that slowly hung them as they tried to wait their way back out of the oblivion.

Time is unfathomable here, there are no stars to light the night nor sun to warm the skin. Just an immeasurable nothingness, choked in sorrow, as heavy and real in the air as rain. This is a place of starving souls – of hearts that still held on to the hope that something, someone would pull them back. And though he moved amongst the sea of grey, hollow bodies – he knew none of their faces. There were no old friends to be had or old lovers to embrace here, only strangers who would not (could not) speak back. He is no one, just an aching flicker of a lost old king too stubborn and prideful to let go.

But finally, it comes.

At first the words come faintly across his consciousness, like a light sprinkling of sand. “Vankish…” the voice is warm and throbs through the darkness like a heartbeat. “Vankish…” comes the call once more and in his throat he can taste the Desert spices again, hot and rich and real on his tongue. The years of brutal solitude that had weighed him down for so long now, no longer felt heavy as a shimmer of golden light parted the mindless black and fell upon his emptiness.

The name, his name, comes again and the wraith-king calls back, shoveling through the myriad of listless, translucent bodies. A thousand memories come rushing back, demanding and violent and beautiful as he comes to her. The Oak and the Willow, the Dragonwinged King and the Golden Queen – the sepulchers of his long awaited hopes rising as he reaches for her. They had shared the crown even longer than each other’s hearts, their love had chains that bound them and tethered them now even still. Chains that would drag him away from this forever incompleteness and back to where the Nightwalker was meant to roam.

And even though her light burns his eyes (the eyes of an old specter, eyes so used to the dark, dark nothingness) and her warm skin burns the paper-thin, colorlessness that makes up his vague shape – he would never turn away. “What took you so long?” He asks, weakly smiling away the sorrow and shame of his helplessness. He was not meant for this place, nor was he meant for the place of the souls who chose to rest. The coals of anger that had burned out long ago begun to smolder again and the desires of his heart began to ache once more. “My queen,” he breathes, a small endearment, an intimacy so easily taken for granted - so long missed. He felt unburdened by her mere presence and although the hint of death lingered around their every breath he grins, “I'm ready to go home now.”

[Yael]

She seems to spend forever amongst the milling, shiftless bodies. Etro’s voice rings in her ear - a pure, tonal chime that cuts across the fogginess of the afterlife with all the beauty of a siren’s call. She keeps it in the back of her mind while pressing forward, just in case something were to happen. Yael is confident that nothing will, but it would be foolish not to have a safety net - and also, wouldn’t Vanquish be simply delighted to see his little princess when he comes back to life? The thought puts a smile on her face, though it looks so out of place there, where the shadows are neverending and land itself is bleached of color. Hope and happiness are but figments of the imagination here; the are of old lives, one’s long forgotten.

Finally, her summons find an echo and so she floats up, above the souls and casts a wide light in all directions, looking for some sort of disturbance. There - not so far away - the masses are parting while a heavier form shoves his way through. For a moment, Yael wonders where his wings are, and then she remembers. They were given on his return from the War; if she thought her heart had ached to see him age, to see him wingless was even worse. Though the magician can easily recall the days when she was bay and ran through the dunes with such simple joy, she feels now that the shiny feathers are so very her, much as she could be any color she chooses to be - but gold suits her. Oversized wings suit her. And Van’s dragon wings suit him.

They would be her second gift.

Yael returns to the faux-ground, hurrying towards Vanquish. As much as she wants to run at him, giving over to the longing that’s laid siege to her soul until it crashes into him at full force, she manages to restrain herself and slow down until they are mere inches from each other. She devours his presence with a starving gaze, noting the say he squints are first, a tiny flinch when she cannot help herself and closes the gap between them, pressing her sun-warmed flesh against his cool… something. A part of her that she’d buried deep, deep, down in the deepest canyon of her conscious resurfaces suddenly. No - this is what that beast felt like, this cool skin against her own, this frame that does not pulse in time to hers anymore. This shape that he wears is not his body. It is a shell, and the revulsion that she chokes down sends a sense of urgency through her.

“Vhy deed you xaf to go and get yourself keelled?” she murmurs into his ear as a good-natured retort, nimbly sidestepping why it took her so long to learn to navigate death.Why she held a tournament to pass the crowns on, why she slipped into a depression, and lay at the base of his tree,why she eventually went to sleep for a year. Her world crumbled, her children left, and her Kingdom fell quiet again. But Yael has rebuilt herself from that devastated puddle of mush, and she has every intention of continuing that work, but by Adonai, she cannot do it herself! So maybe this whole thing is selfish; maybe she’s just doing it to give herself a great big, winged rock to stand on. She sweeps her wings forward to arc up and around his broad, tall shoulders in the perfect imitation of a human hug. No, it isn’t selfishness. His words confirm that she is doing the right thing, and she presses the flat of her head against his own. “Let’s go, t’en. Etro ees vaiting for us.” She swallows heavily, not wanting to waste any time, thinking ahead to what she’s going to do with him once they leave the afterlife. “Breat deeply, love. T’is may feel… strange, ok? Just trust me.”

With those words, she melts herself into an orb of pure, white light - life - and folds the wraith of a stallion in with her wings. Her lover firmly in her grasp, energy-Yael rises once again above the monochromatic forms and follows the sound of Etro’s voice. Yael, her daughter calls, and then Yael, again, until the magician (who is only slightly preoccupied with keeping Vanquish within her grasp and making sure they both get out unharmed) can once again feel the thinning of the veil between the living and the dead. There is an unmistakable, albeit fuzzy bay form on the other side, and as she speaks again, energy-Yael pushes through, back into color and sight and smell and taste and beating, pumping, love-consumed hearts.

Still hovering, she slowly unfurls herself, revealing their pre-ball embrace, and a still gray, ghostly Vanquish. Her dainty lips purse into a frown as she shakes her head, muttering to herself. Without stopping to explain, she steps back and begins to build a body around the shell. Pulling from watching her own children grow in her womb, she crafts him new flesh and bone, attaching muscles to bone and tendons to joints, forming organs and hair and all the physical qualities that she so lusted after when they fell in love. He finally stands before them, and when the last bit is placed on the tip of his nose, she laughs in joy and relief and amazement.

For the piece de resistance - she weaves him wings of dragon skin and leather, fixing them to his shoulders, and whispers tenderly, “Vake up!”

Yael, guardian of the desert

[etro]

etro --

in the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon,
I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom

Etro does not understand the magic that is being spun here, does not fully grasp the severity of what her mother is doing, but she is in awe of it. Something larger than her—grander than her. Something that even she could not ruin. She continues to repeat her mother’s name on the twentieth count, but at the same time, she does something she has never attempted: she minimizes herself. She closes her muddy eyes, and she sinks into her veins. She feels her way through the cells and the ribs and the sinew and she draws herself in. The heavy smothering feeling of her ability becomes lighter, and she feels the effort fleck her neck with sweat. She pulls the blanket in; she does her very best to keep herself small, ineffective.

She trusted her mother, but she also knew what failure would mean.
She knew that she would never forgive herself if she caused it.

So when they return, she does not sigh with relief and rush to them—although she wants to. She just closes her eyes again, body slick with her effort, and she focuses even harder, white-knuckling to keep her trait from extending toward her glorious, powerful mother—doing everything she could to contain it.

It is only when she hears Yael’s laugh, her command to wake up, that she let’s go. She can feel it, the power of it flood back into her extremities, and it feels right—she feels whole again. (And, yet, she still hates it. She still despises the negation that composes her.) “Mom,” she sighs, feeling faint from the effort, from the fear, from the exposure. She takes a shaky, disbelieving step. “Dad.” Tears spring into her eyes, and she makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a cry. “I can’t believe you’re back.”

-- vanquish and yael's forgotten trait-negating princess --