Northstar Vale I'm gonna be free & I'm gonna be fine; but baby not tonight

the sun finally falls prey to the mountains, and the chill that has settled over the vale begins to deepen. Dawn sits motionless, trying to understand why she doesn't feel numb. she feels cold, yes, like ice that stretches over her veins and slows the thud of her heart, but she feels - love for him, for them. 

she swallows, seeing the tinge of light through closed eyelids. abstractly, she knows she's going to be fine. that's life, or at least hers. pain, hurt, heartbreak. rage, grief, mistakes. recover, heal, become something like who she used to be. rinse, repeat. she's tried to regain herself so many times she's not sure she is, anymore—herself, that is, or whoever she was before this all. 

this time, she lets herself feel the grief, the terror of the unknown. Aditya is dead, Stone is missing, and she feels it all crashing down again. 


"They disappear. Mothers," he said, not quite meeting Dawn's eye. "Wouldn't you be worried? Your mother, Khoe, Heartha, Althaia, and all the others... What if there really is a curse? 

and she knows now, clearly, that her father was right. she is cursed, and horribly selfish - to try at something that had only ever brought her and other pain in the past. who was she, to try at a family? dead and gone and missing and torn apart once again, and in that moment she knew, clearly, that family was something she could never have.