elena

I've hidden memories in boxes inside my head before. Sometimes it's the only way to deal with things.

She has dreamed of Dusk Court burning again. Flames licking at its citadel, ash building in the streets. Elena stands there, tall, over everything, on a pedestal of unyielding ice, panic in her blue eyes as her home turns to smoke. She screams, but no one hears, a shadow passes over. She can almost recall it now, here in the day, the heat against her face, but the cold beneath her feet. The shiver that ran through her as shadows moved over her. She nearly chokes on the smoke, as if it crosses over from her dream world. She blinks blue eyes, That heart-shaped marking made of ivory shows through on her golden forehead.

Elena wonders what she would do without Dusk, without her Court. She has learned again and again how to patch herself, to patch herself up again when the world seems so determined to keep her in pieces, scattered all over (a few beside the ocean, over mountains, bottoms of the lakes). Elena is longer whole. (She hasn't been since those carefree days in Windskeep where a decision between a blue flower or a purple flower in her hair seemed large. Or nap times seemed far too long.) Fractured, chipped, she is all those things, and she keeps giving herself away (and she would do so without question to those who needed it.) And she takes those empty places and fills it with healing those who need her, or the love of her daughter, the joy of her friends. She ties to fill it with as much happiness as she can find. The chip on her shoulder holds Marisol’s faith in her. The crack down her cheek, she places Elli’s goodnight kisses. The loose piece upon her knee is filled flower walks with Po. And Azrael, Anandi, Torix, Moira, Michael, they take the rest and fill her in until she can pretend as if sunlight is not leaking out of her and onto the floor, leaving shadows in her wake.

And still, sometimes those frayed, fractured ends, they burn as if those bonfires no longer flicker outside her, but within her. (She stares at those flames sometimes and she is so terrified, because what if they spread, what if they break loose? She is not so strong to keep them contained.)

Since becoming a mother, her sense have sharpened, grown more acute, her daydreaming is not so carefree anymore when she has another life to look after, to watch for. And her daughter, well, she is far better than any day dream she could possibly conjure. It is why she so quickly turns when she hears the sounds of small feet coming her way.

“Mom,” Elliana looks at her, blue eyes meet together and she can feel the worry that pours from her daughter. The worry, the concern, the fear. “Elli,” she says, walking closer to her, but she says nothing more, she doesn't need to, the empath can sense enough. “Someone, in the hospital, I think they need your help,” her daughter says with tragic blue eyes that poets like to write about and singers picture when singing sad ballads. “They’re close, Mom.”

So very close.
Close to what?

Elli knows.
Elena knows.

You know too, don’t you?

Years ago, on a cold day, Elena had ran until her legs gave out.

Today she runs faster and harder still.

The Hospital is not so far, at least for someone who knows the way. The swamp, she likes to think, is kind to her, after all she has given it, after all the blood she has kept from washing in its waters. It has to be kind to her, it has to know, because today there are no vines, it is like running on a sandy beach rather than a tangled marsh. Elena will tell newer generations, if she lives to see it, she will tell them that the swamp that day granted her wings and took her where she needed to be. How else would she have made it, how else could she have arrived at the exact right moment? She will tell them she grew wings from swamp grass and twisting trees, with flowers for feathers.

And she landed right before the Commander, her entire body shuddering in Marisol’s agony, her betrayal, her fight, her confusion. She watches her fall to her knees as if in prayer and not in pain. Elena is beside her in an instant, like in a flash of gold so quick, she would look more like a sword than a girl, glinting in the dying light.

“No, no no.” She wants to weep beside her. “Oh gods, oh gods,” she says instead. A single diamond tear slips from her eyes, it falls onto her lips, it tastes like salt. It falls from her eyes, her single release—and then she goes to work.

*****The palomino assess, running blue eyes over her body, like a hand runs through silk. Her glances are smooth as she dives and dips over all the damage inflicted upon her. Cuts and bruises line her body, gashes have torn her skin open and Elena is all to aware that the armor Marisol always seemed to wear was no more than an illusion constructed of her quiet strength and resilience. The realization that Marisol is as mortal as the rest of them, it sits in the back of her throat with more burn and more heat than any dream smoke ever could.

There is a bump on her head that concerns Elena. She has no way to know if she bleeds from there, hidden beneath her skin. Elena gathers water to wash over the wounds, to clear the dirt and the debris. Her limbs, Elena glances at as she cleans pouring water over wounds as if they were no more than the red tulips over her gardens, are sound, nothing broken, there may be sprains, but she wouldn't know now. She is grateful in this one mercy she finds before—

Her wing. Oh her wing. Elena watches the way an ivory bone makes its presence over the dark feathers that Elena has so beloved of her queen and her leader. She continues patching the open sores as she thinks, until the other hospital workers come and make light of sewing them together, and bandaging those that need it. A salve the hospital has is put over to prevent infection. They are diligent and quiet, the small crew, and Elena is grateful for the silence as she thinks.

Carefully, gently, she begins to stretch her wing out slightly to better see where the bone should rest. She wants to sob there and then once more, but she chokes it back with the steadfast resolve she learned when training. She applies some pressure to the wound, to keep any blood from running. She cleans away dirt and debris, dried blood, until it is clean, ruby red, no longer running.

She needed to stabilize first the internal component. She has fixed wings before, but only one pegasus, and not to this extent. The obsidian unicorn who trained her comes to mind, trying to imagine what Lovelace would do, how she would mend this. She needs something to hold the bone in place inside. She has made splints before, but this would need to be made of stronger than any sticks she has found. And then she remembers Marisol’s eyes, the strength within them. Stone, she needed stone. No, not stone. Iron. They melt it, make it malleable enough to form to the bone as Elena arranges it just so, back to what it once was. “You will fly again,” she whispers to her. She should know better than to make promises, but she has to believe this. Life has taken much from Elena, but she cannot allow it to take from Marisol. Outside, she places another splint, one she is more familiar with, created by wood delicate carved, strong enough to hold, but flexible enough that she can still move slightly without causing damage once she begins to heal. Elena takes her wing again and nestles it against her dark side, wrapping a bandage around her neck and down around the wing, securing it next to her to keep it from moving.

“Go now,” she says to the rest of the hospital workers as she turns to them. “There is nothing more we can do except wait, let her sleep, so that her body may fight,” she says and blue eyes rest against Marisol once more. “You all do great work today. Rest, but speak of this to no one,” The Champion of Community says. The workers nod their heads and depart, the healing creatures that inhabit the hospital move to go on their own way too, and attend to other patients that reside there.

Elena takes the petals she had been keeping here from the flowers Po had given her, the petals of the passionfruit and chamomile. She crushes them together and mixes in peppermint and poppy, for any pain of the head and pain of the body. She mixes it with water and gently pours it down the commander’s throat. “Sleep,” she says, and rests her golden head against. “Sleep without dreams, banish nightmares before they enter,” she says, pressing her head further into her. And for long hours, she stays just so, unwilling to move, as she presses feelings of calm and peace into her. Ocean waves. Owls in the night. Children, their children, laughing together. There was nothing to do now but wait. “Marisol,” Elena breathes into her dark skin, before she too, slumbers. *****