Stone Circle Love from the other side of the apocalypse

I was going to wait until some group threads concluded but I really wanted something with them before Rev's drama, if that's okay <3 This can be set to all welcome if you don't have time/muse!

@Bjarna; a constant at Kvarsheim, a comforting concept of home to a girl who had abandoned her own for the promise of something brighter. In some ways Bjarna represented that brightness. Still Reverie avoided her, without even realizing it until the day she did. She thought to find the girl, check in on her, and realized all at once that she did not want to —
And why?! She was immediately cross with herself. It made no sense at all. But then she sat and she thought about it, as Reverie often did, and realized that maybe it did make a little sense. She thought about her conversation with Gunnar, and what she'd said to Crowfeather about where she really belonged. Bjarna was home, personified, but Reverie was finding that she did not want home anymore. It was familiar to her; it was easy; a learned thing but not a natural thing. She wanted, above all else, to be free — and she knew that was unfair to Bjarna. Unfair of her to promise anyone any part of her wandering heart. She knew that she would do it again, that she would always fall helplessly in love with every beautiful soul she encountered. She would always fit herself into spaces that didn't really belong to her. A sister to Bjarna, a daughter to Gunnar, a lover to Lestan; she was all of these things and none of them, not truly. A life like a memory already lived, and now she wanted to create her own memories, but she felt trapped. Set on the path with no way to turn off.
She looked for Bjarna.

all tags for reference only <3
note 2 self this is before sanja return

above everything.

above all of it.

peace.

she had thought very long about what it might look like. for herself, for others, for kvarsheim as a whole. was she doing everything in a way that was conducive to it? did @Gunnar merely let her decide things out of an obligation? did @Skáld only stay because there may be no other place?

did they all love her? were they all happy with her? proud of her?

what of mother bear? was it why she had left? a lack of happiness and pride? the cold air stung at teary eyes well before she knew it. yet she had become rather adept at sucking back in these emotions. which was perhaps why her face shrunk back into something neutral beneath its sag and wrinkles as the sound of footfall reached her ears.

a turn of her head allowed her to spot the gilded form of reverie. another piece of her heart that she may one day disappoint! was it unfair to think such a thing?

systir. she softly smiled and beckoned her closer.

Her youngest sister was a pale star against the landscape, a warm gentle light like a guiding beacon in the snow. Home. Bjarna greeted her with a smile. Always with a smile. Reverie was hurt by it, and hurt again that she felt this way. She smiled too, but it was a sad smile, and her embrace was a wilted and hesitant thing when she swept forward to greet Bjarna properly. How could she tell her that she wanted to leave? How could she love her so endlessly and still feel so empty, so desperately wanting?
I've been a terrible sister, A whisper like a confession into pale fur, but surely Bjarna already knew. I thought this could be home. I thought - so many things. Reverie fell silent, because she knew Bjarna couldn't understand, and she knew that it would be terribly unfair to continue. It would only confuse the girl, maybe distress her, and Reverie was desperate enough to acknowledge the opportunity to vent without really having the conversation she still wasn't ready for, but she wasn't selfish enough to take it. She wished desperately that Bjarna could understand, that they could have a real conversation. But they couldn't, so she only held her and hoped she would understand that, above all else, she loved her.

if too much is assumed pls yell at me

there was a sadness in the air.

this was not the golden sister she had chased into snow drifts with tumbling falls. this seemed more like the wayward girl she had first found, before she had become sister. bjarna held her close to her small frame. tiny, miniscule even against the thin frame of reverie.

ég saknaði þín.

yet bjarna had to admit she did not feel a grand need to speak beyond her soft spoken, drooping words.

she felt very much like a wilted flower in those moments despite her best efforts.

No this is perfect <3

Of the words Bjarna returned to her, Reverie only understood two of them from her lesson with Gunnar. The sentence could have meant anything, because she missed the most important piece, but she felt the tone of it like gentle heat to a bruise, and winced even as she welcomed the warmth.
She realized she didn't know what to do, and all at once felt overwhelmed. She felt helpless to express her feelings, and realized that it was partially her own fault. If she spent more time here, learning — but she didn't want to! She wanted freedom, she wanted to roam and be unknown, she wanted the world — ! Reverie pulled from the embrace and started to cry, because wanting these things meant wanting to leave Bjarna. And she didn't. But Bjarna was a pack wolf, a real one, and Reverie was learning that packs meant quite a bit to her kind. Packs were a part of their identity, they were — their homes, their families, all tied into one. It was almost like The Gilded Sea had been, just a different way of life, and that made it more difficult to swallow in some ways. She couldn't ask Bjarna to follow her into the unknown, to leave Gunnar and the others. But she couldn't stay, and she couldn't leave, either. For the moment, she could only cry.

suddenly cold replaced where the sun of reverie had been.

suddenly there were tears and the overwhelming sadness had dumped into the air between them. bjarna had wondered if it had been her, somehow. something she had said or done. maybe something she hadn't.

the need to hush and soothe mingled with the desire to let reverie feel these things freely. safely.

bjarna's own eyes watered now, watching on in a soft silence.

perhaps she had not grown at all. merely thought she had. only mimicked the world around her, without having ever truly lived it.

was this living? the sadness and worries and pain of the world in every breath?

Maybe it was best that she leave.
She felt her own sadness permeating the air around them, felt it infecting Bjarna. Through tears, she watched her sickness wrap itself around her sister, a quiet gentle thing and only more insidious for it. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Love was meant to bring joy. It was meant to make their lives brighter. Reverie did not feel bright now; she felt dim and fading, she felt suffocated and sad and guilty, and Bjarna was suffering for it. The girl needed light, Kvarsheim needed light, and Reverie's only seemed to come alive when she stepped past their borders and forgot her promise to them. Home had become a trap; home meant facing shirked responsibilities and quiet moments to think entirely too much about how everything might go wrong.
She wondered if she would really be happier if she left, and that was when the tears slowed. She looked at Bjarna and wondered what it would be like to have to stand at the border and call for her and wait. An outsider, looking in. Do you ever want to leave? Reverie asked abruptly, voice breaking. She knew Bjarna wouldn't understand but she couldn't stop herself. Leave Kvarsheim, all of it.

her english was still not the best. not by any stretch.

yet still she knew certain words, what they might convey to another in some ways. nothing complex.

you.

leave.

kvarsheim.

small seashell shaped ears twitched for a moment. even as they mist of her eyes remained dutifully. this felt like a sacred moment between two girls, two systirs. one in which bjarna might reveal a soft slice of her heart to the golden girl even more.

not often did she think of it.

but she had recalled the desires to wander, the promises made by faces now long gone from these places. a time not so long ago when she had been just a girl. learning from her mother bear. learning from those around. now she stole trips away only to hunt, only to see riverclan and the radiant @Crowfeather or the mystical @Silvertongue.

sometime. the word was clumsier than her systir may say it and bjarna's teary features fell into something sheepish. softened by a small sense of embarrassment — or maybe it was shame.

She understood.
For a moment that was all Reverie could comprehend — that Bjarna knew what she'd said, what she'd asked. But secondarily, and perhaps more importantly, and certainly more to the point —
She understood. That feeling, that want; the urge to take one last look at all of it and launch headlong into the unknown, because it was simply easier than staying. It was easier not knowing, never being able to guess what might go wrong or what might go right. Easier when there was nothing to return to, because that meant she didn't need to think about yesterday's promises or tomorrow's demands. But it was different, even then. Reverie wasn't like Bjarna, who stood and shouldered her every responsibility unflinchingly, Bjarna who was so like the sun itself: steadfast, warm, ever lighting the way for those who would otherwise be lost in the dark.
Reverie thus far had let every responsibility handed to her slip right through her fingers. No amount of guilt would change it. It was who she was, the essential star lighting the heart of her, and always had been. The only difference now was that she knew it, and no longer wanted to deny it.
But how to balance that with the most driving of forces, the basic need to be loved — that escaped her. She sighed, shook her head. I want to leave, Reverie admitted, voice soft and melancholy. More than sometimes. And - what difference would it make, really? I'm never home anyway. She might have said more, but for now she only wanted to see how much Bjarna understood. And if she did understand, Reverie would give her the space she needed for whatever anger or hurt feelings might follow. She owed her that much, at least.

so sorry for the wait
want.

leave.

bjarna felt the familiar plucking of her heartstrings like a saddened harp, but had everybody ever told her this? their wants before? even if it was to leave? mother bear had simply vanished. dagur too. taktuq. how many other drifting faces in her short life? sometimes they came back. other times they stayed gone.

someone had abandoned her once without a word. when she was nothing more than a bloated babe in a dark, damp den.

perhaps it was life, in a way.

she wondered if this was a kindness she was even owed. for her systir to come to her, to say these things and speak or ask. none had done so before. she sucked in a sharp breathy through a dripping nose. eyes stung with salt and ice.

systir...wahnt go?

bjarna loved her too much to keep her here if she wished for the world beyond — and could she blame her? they both seemed too young to be here forever.

but, ah—

---

i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

note: bjarna speaks broken english at best.
icelandic will be italicized with translations on hover/click.

Never apologize <3 Reverie isn't officially leaving Kvarsheim as of this thread, but this will be her last appearance here for awhile and can be referenced as such; she made the decision not to go back recently

Bjarna was not angry, but she cried, and for a moment Reverie almost hated herself for it. But she needed this, didn't she? She needed Bjarna to know how she felt, because it wasn't going away, and it was better for both of them if they saw it coming before it happened.
No, not now, She promised before she could stop herself. And - I would come back. To visit. I love you, you know. I always will. I just - I can't - Reverie took a deep breath. I have to listen to myself. I have to care about what I want. I didn't for so long, and no one else did either, and... Maybe this was too many words for Bjarna, but she didn't want to talk to her like she was stupid, either. She wanted this to be sincere, if nothing else. She had to at least make the attempt. Her sister, the strongest and most capable of Reverie's many sisters, deserved to know that as painful as this was, it was not an ugly thing that drove Reverie to turn her back on Kvarsheim. It was a beautiful thing, painful but no less precious for it. This was healing.

she will always be welcomed for visits with open arms <33

it was a lot.

it jumbled her brain, already frazzled by feelings. bjarna felt the harsh sting of embarrassment again. how she wished to be so fluent! or how she wished more knew her tongue.

instead they danced around each other in the tangled webs of wants and needs.

but all that mattered was —

luhve. she mumbled softly. then sought, on tippy toes, to kiss reverie's golden crown. if she might! luhve you. luhve systir.

whatever she wished for, bjarna hoped she'd find it.

She will definitely visit at some point <3

Whether Bjarna truly understood was unclear. Maybe it would always be so. But what little she did echo back, Reverie gathered closely like a bounty, like so much treasure overflowing through her fingers; one word, worth all the gold in the world. Love.
Bjarna kissed her forehead and Reverie could only hug her tightly. There were no more words left to be said. She understood now: love without possession, without expectation. Unconditional, irrevocable, soul-burning, life-changing love. That was the memory she lived, and the rest was hers to do with as she pleased. If she could not stay true to Kvarsheim, to Bjarna, she could at least hold fast to this. It was all she could do.