crash through the surface
where they can't hurt us

t’s Reckitt--


If she sobbed for days, she would still not have enough salt water to cleanse herself from the perverse revelation of what comes next. Those glassy eye, like a fogged up mirror, the steam making a reflection blurred, hazed. Eyes that did not see her, did not recognize her, they traced the form of her newness with no recollection.

It’s Reckitt--

Kitt felt like she had dove into the river, head first, bombarded with the bitter cold of icy Winter frigidity. The pale mare went cold, empty, her heart sank and rose up into her throat all at once. Her senses flooded, without the rampant water of the tides, she felt numb, forsaken. Something was so very wrong here, she was wrong, it was all wrong this life and yet she was here. Shaking all over, her nerves are pins and needles, anxious and malicious.

It’s Reckitt--

“W-we have,” she chokes, the words like knotted netting, she but a bird or a fish caught and imprisoned. Shackled in a body that was not hers, It’s Reckitt, but it is hers, she is Reckitt, this is me now, she tells herself. Those are thoughts she does not wish to hear, squinting her eyes shut painfully so, until the sun leaves orange orbs against the blackness of her lids.

“Not Asteas,” she shakes her head, confused, cheated. “You, y-you were there, I was there, you were my f-friend.” Kitt can not help the way she sobs, the way her words crack and change pitch, as if she does not know whether to shout, to whisper, to chant like a rhyme would send this awful nightmare away. If words are wind, why isn’t she wind as well? She was feeling more and more meaningless as the days went by, some erasable thing.

“Hāsta, your bird, she wasn’t alive then-there-Ourania..I d-don’t understand,” nothing makes sense, so she shivers, overrun with tremors, becoming unsteady and swaying once, perhaps twice.

“I thought, I h-hoped, we aren’t supposed to be like this!” Shouting, her voice is raised in her distress, eye wild and whites exposed, fear befalling her as her nostrils flare wide. “We’re wolves, we were wolves, I am a wolf,” its more than a statement, more than a truth that finds its way into the exposure of being spoken, being made corporeal and substantial in this moment.

It’s Reckitt--

A silver head hangs, drooping and defeated, she wished she could disappear now, like she once had there on the bone littered beaches. Kitt wanted to fade away, she wanted to become the nothing that she felt she was. “There’s no such thing as Elysium,” she whispers and in some ways, there isn’t, their Kingdom had not fleshed out, left unfinished, abandoned.

crash through the surface
where they can't hurt us

lysium, her cheeks are already so wet, if there are more tears to be shed for the thought of her home; they are lost in the streams that stain her pale face. It would have been so exceptionally wonderful, she wonders if it still exists, on some plane of life elsewhere, something beyond. Kitt hopes it does, along with those she had befriended there, it would be too heavy a loss for them all to simply cease to exist.

Afterall, Corrdelia is here with her, right before her very eyes, reflecting the same pale stare back at her that she had when they were canine.

I believe you and Reckitt swiftly takes a breath, a hiccup following, staring intently at the curves of Corr’s new appearance. The dark fur she once sported that was now dappled and fading in tones of ash against her horse hair. Soft downy wings against her back, the color of blackest raven, but not the tips, those reflected the dapples pale shade of grey.

“It’s still you under there,” she tells her, though this body was different, this shape was as unfamiliar as her own, there were still key aspects of the dark wolf that had not been lost in her change. She wishes to press her cheek to the woman’s skin, to listen to the beat of a heart that was surely the same one as before, to match the rhythm of her breathing until she was once more calm. Until Reckitt was secure and comforted, but the pale horse does not know if she should, yet her whiskered chin stretches out to the dark hide of her companion.

Corr tells her it’s alright, that Wolf was her spirit guide, Kitt cocks her head to the side, confused but intently listening anyways.  She’s done this before, it feels so familiar, washing over her like a sense of deja vu. Perhaps Corrdelia didn’t remember her, did not recall Ourania, their family, but Reckitt remembered for the both of them. “This body is so strange to me,” she confesses as the other moves in, lending comfort, pieces of the way her new mind worked, Spirit guides, Gods of Novus. There was no knowledge of either for Kitt, she had never had a Spirit Guide herself, and the Gods of another world were surely lost on her.

There had been Gods in Ourania, but they were long dead.

For the ashen woman, there was only the Earth Mother that was constant, Mother Nature as some might say, at least she still had that. The plane upon which she walked was never changing, not really, it had become something she could rely on, even if she could not make peace with her own reflection.

“I’m happy you’re here with me,” was she, or was it Kitt that was here with her?

crash through the surface
where they can't hurt us

’m happy you’re here…

Not even that statement fully portrayed her gratitude, she isn’t sure she even knew words that could express such an elation. Instead she inhales deeply, then looks to Corrdelia with a soft smile, warm and heartfelt. Sometimes words couldn’t say what one felt, but actions, actions spoke when the mouth went still.

“Your wings,” she said, looking over the black down that her friend now sported, “If only Syrinx could see you now.” Syrinx had been graced with wings, back in another time, back at the other place, the plane of existence they both had left behind. Wings as delicate and vivid as a butterfly, wings that lifted her into the summer skies where she dazzled those below. Reckitt remembered it as though it were yesterday, it was the day they had all met, the afternoon they become friends.

Kitt smiles, while Corr speaks, her silken tail flicks lightly against her hocks, swaying absentmindedly. She didn’t even realize she was doing it, and did not know the purpose assuredly. Baby foals, there were not many in Ourania, not a single one she had seen herself, but she thought she may recognize an infant if she should see one. Much smaller she assumed, pups were decidedly miniatures of the pack, the same features, only little. Baby equus must be the same, right?

“That is easier said than done I’ve learned,” she gives a sheepish look to the dark mare, telling of her trials without going into detail. That look said it all.

Kitt turns her side gaze to Hāsta, the fact that the avian was living, well, that was unexpected. The Druid had never thought about what Corr’s companion might be like when she still moved and breathed, but she would not have expected the crow to be so wary of her. She seemed to be sizing her up, though she can’t be sure, but something about the way the bird moved and tossed her eyes said something wasn’t to be trusted.

She would have to show her that was not true, Kitt could be many things she supposed, but misleading was not one of them.

Terrastella

Another court she learns, Dusk to be exact, and she starts making a connection. Dawn, Dusk, did the people here praise the day, much the opposite as she had the Night? What did long-faces do at gatherings? Not hunt, she guessed, not feast, but if not, then what?

“I- Well I should be honored,” she decided, nodding her head in affirmation.