Hushed Willows be my baby

✹☾❂

 

There must be something about one’s birthplace, Eleuthera mused. Truly, it is a profound thing. From the moment one becomes earthside, the energy of the earth imprints on you. It’s like it never leaves, always calling you, hoping one day you might heed it and come home.

Though her mothers’ willow grove wasn’t the exact location where she was born, it was this entire land she called home. It was these mountains that sang to her, drawing her like a moth to the flame. A lifetime of exploration, and somehow this one place was permanently written into her DNA. It wasn’t just the willows, it was the mountain range and then the coast beyond it, and the sun-soaked valleys and the frigid taiga up north.  Every pockmark of the land and bow of the river; she had seen it all and become intimately familiar with its geography. It had been easy to find her way back, when it was time.

Eleuthera gazed uneasily into the neck of the rock formation that embraced and shielded the forested glen, a wisp of a grimace written across her face, knowing very well what lay inside. Knowing what she must do. There was another family making their home here now, it seemed that to be true, but she still knew what must be done. It was a funny thing, how time marched ever onwards and dragged every living thing along with it, too often kicking and screaming. She supposed she would need their permission.

She didn’t announce her presence, for the lilac fae figured she was already under their surveillance. She sat far back from the border’s scent-markings, almost as if she was simply a spectator — but she was not an uninvolved bystander. Far from it. Silently, the woman waited to be tended to.