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.
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.
wearing my dream like a diadem in some better land.
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Why love him? “Uniyë.” You have had to discover so much in solitude. ...His absence, for one. Her heart: muscle and sinew. You gave him your first litter. Her heart: metal and glass. You would have given several litters if it meant giving him a happiness. Her heart: it was other things and broken, a third time, so assured that each fracture had been by her own indelicate acts.
As late midsommar bled into the early harvest, with it is the dawning upon Aurëwen’s melancholia is that her heart, too, would mend. His last words had entreated her to give up — give up all that she’d been sure she’d felt so thoroughly. Perhaps, then, she had been hoodwinking herself into such affections: that they may arise, might arrive, had she been more singular, more ... pertinent. Sensible, as she’d once been, when she’d first brought herself to him, womb brimming with those they’d grown together.
Aure forgets, as she is heady with wont to do, why she has returned to the Vale. But airgetlám will not forget another soul, another heart which she perceives has been forsaken in very much the same manner — so she proffers a misted chirrup to the peak-fell female, and does not make a smile gentle her worn, shorn facade. Wonders how to speak, and finds her chords unstrung.
As late midsommar bled into the early harvest, with it is the dawning upon Aurëwen’s melancholia is that her heart, too, would mend. His last words had entreated her to give up — give up all that she’d been sure she’d felt so thoroughly. Perhaps, then, she had been hoodwinking herself into such affections: that they may arise, might arrive, had she been more singular, more ... pertinent. Sensible, as she’d once been, when she’d first brought herself to him, womb brimming with those they’d grown together.
Aure forgets, as she is heady with wont to do, why she has returned to the Vale. But airgetlám will not forget another soul, another heart which she perceives has been forsaken in very much the same manner — so she proffers a misted chirrup to the peak-fell female, and does not make a smile gentle her worn, shorn facade. Wonders how to speak, and finds her chords unstrung.
August 25, 2019, 04:13 AM
and so she took it all, the hope, the love for them, the all the desperate things she'd felt when they'd been for a moment, whole, and cut it away from her. she could not bear to be a mother, a lover, a friend. and this valley was heavy with ash and smoke and memories of those long gone.
she blinks open her eyes to see a woman, petit and coloured with ivory. "hello." comes her voice, raspy and dry against her throat. how many times had she screamed their names, how long had she searched for a trail she could not find?
"I'm Dawn." stilted, simple words, going through the motions. she did not know how she still stood here, only that to think about the past week, to allow her mind to settle on it for more than a moment would tear her apart.
she blinks open her eyes to see a woman, petit and coloured with ivory. "hello." comes her voice, raspy and dry against her throat. how many times had she screamed their names, how long had she searched for a trail she could not find?
"I'm Dawn." stilted, simple words, going through the motions. she did not know how she still stood here, only that to think about the past week, to allow her mind to settle on it for more than a moment would tear her apart.
wearing my dream like a diadem in some better land.
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At the most hideous lows of her despondency, the herbalist had wished (so hatefully quicksilver that she wondered if she’d ever actually wondered at it) to part from it all as her hanno had so effortlessly, so tearlessly parted from her. Her dark dragons’ capture was supposedly not her fault, but when he had gone it was the last fraying of threads upon the fragile spindle that she assumes they’d all clung to in the hopes of healing. Her morose, fragmented mind concluded that they were a family in tatters, and Aure blamed herself without self-pity, yet knew she could not abandon, never abandon her brood, at least.
Still: she ebbed and faded like the light seen through argent, autumning boughs and it was only the voice — introduction of Dawn — that coaxed the druid from her numbed reverie. A grey warden, eliciting as natural a response as she could muster, “Aurëwen,” a dreary lull, before: “Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo.” Eyes, far too quiet and as hard and fell as the sea, found the burnished gaze of Dawn’s without further comment.
Well: “Do you come to ze vale, often?”
Still: she ebbed and faded like the light seen through argent, autumning boughs and it was only the voice — introduction of Dawn — that coaxed the druid from her numbed reverie. A grey warden, eliciting as natural a response as she could muster, “Aurëwen,” a dreary lull, before: “Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo.” Eyes, far too quiet and as hard and fell as the sea, found the burnished gaze of Dawn’s without further comment.
Well: “Do you come to ze vale, often?”
August 30, 2019, 04:31 AM
there it comes again; an overwhelming wave of desperation, helplessness, fear, that has her gasp almost audibly. they are
gone
and she can't find them. she's not good enough to find them, not good enough to be a mother, a friend, because how could she lose them all so quickly? how could she, how did she, deserve to live and breathe air when she'd seen everything she'd loved by burned and lost? but the woman asked a question, and she answered, voice sounding as if it didn't quite come from her own maw. it was too monotonous, firm, held together, and she was coming undone. "no. I am searching - my family is missing." and she had lost them.
gone
and she can't find them. she's not good enough to find them, not good enough to be a mother, a friend, because how could she lose them all so quickly? how could she, how did she, deserve to live and breathe air when she'd seen everything she'd loved by burned and lost? but the woman asked a question, and she answered, voice sounding as if it didn't quite come from her own maw. it was too monotonous, firm, held together, and she was coming undone. "no. I am searching - my family is missing." and she had lost them.
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