Blackwater Islands baby, do you ever wonder

@Andr (reference)  just getting the ball rolling for her so she doesn't fall inactive again lol. read only since iaghe is actively avoiding company.

dreams of the fire woke her. 

she kept waiting for the terrors to abate, or at the least to acclimate to them. and yet, each night she woke shuddering and soaked with sweat -- strangled by smoke. 

mouth full of ashes, the winterborne rushed from the shadows of the den and into the relief of sunrise. she slowed only when her heart did, sobering in the crisp air. sides heaving, steam rising from her lips as if to mock her.

the north was no home for her. not anymore. 

the deep had claimed those she loved in another life. the isle of her birth was still scarred -- not unlike the ghost it had born. 

but these islands were enough. in the middle of winter, it was so familiar that memories sometimes flashed in front of her eyes.

a mother. gentle, sweet. lilting and dancing as a young iaghe laughed, watching where she was tangled upon the ground in hopeless imitation. 

a sister. one who'd been knotted up in the sand with her. whose wet eyes had found iaghe's over the mound of dirt that covered their dam in death.

it had been no simple decision to leave. and no simple decision to return. 

but she was not the only who had survived the deep. 

here, she could be safe from lóminórë. 

and andr could be safe from her.

the memory of her might've faded for him. but the memories of him were the only ones she could not forget.

if others ever found the isle, she strayed well away from them. 

and if ever the memories came to be too much, she turned her eyes fixedly away from the west. 

reminded herself that he was most definitely long gone by now. and better off without the scourge of her upon his future.