Elena knows what it means when she fusses so softly at her, know those little mumbles and the way she nestles close to the gold of her skin. She had been up watching the night again, soaked in the patch of starlight that often pooled just outside of their cottage home. She breathes in deeply, sighs and shifts so slightly to press her lips to the soft place just behind her little, dark ear. At least she had not left this time, not followed the siren song of the night that so often called her to come and play in its shadows. There was nothing worse than waking up and finding her gone, to find only cold emptiness in the bed beside her, where her daughter had once been tucked against her.
Her mouth wanders so slowly down her little neck, nuzzling her lips along the crest of her neck and just beneath her blonde mane. She moves over her withers, that crescent moon sigil of gold. To her side, the curve of her hip, and her soft little belly, grooming all the loose dirt and damp earth from her dark skin. It is so easy to fuss over her while she sleeps, to tug loose the tangles in her downy soft mane while the morning creeps closer and closer through the windows of their home. Morning is nearly here, and se wishes she could push it back a little further. She settles her head back over her daughter, to draw her close.
Their cottage is modest, Elena has no necessity for extra, expensive things, Elliana has her own room, but she was perfectly content to sleep beside her mother while Nic slept soundly in her room. She preferred it, to sleep beside her every night, in her mother’s bed. Elena doesn't complain.
She must have been drifting in and out of sleep herself while she waited for her to wake, because a small jolt of surprise races through her when Elliana starts to stir. She blinks, noticing how much of the morning had crept in and she wishes it would stay back away for another moment, but it progresses just as it always does. “I will be home later, baby,” she says, kisses her head and tip toes out of her home.
When Elena had been small, she had not needed to imagine the places of story lands because she lived in the land where so many of her stories took place. And now she lives in another land that feels altogether mythical. Blue eyes blink away the sleep, the faltering edges of her lips smoothing out like a church dress on Sunday. Not a stitch out of place, not a wrinkle. She finds her in the court, it is still early, Elena wonders if she spent the night in Dusk, or traveled all through the night to get here. Either way, The Champion of Community greets her with a warm, spring morning smile.
“You must be Ruth. I’m Elena.”
those are the kind of girls who try to save wolves
☼ RUTH OF HOUSE IESHAN ☼רות "EVEN THOUGH THE OVERLOOKING SKY / so solemnly vermillion / sub-divides/the / seething stripes as soft / as sweet as the opening / of your mouth."
It is business that brings me to Terrastella again.
I am to meet with the Champion of Community, who was a doctor before her promotion; I think that she saw to my brother, once. (That doesn’t necessarily bolster my confidence in her, but my feelings on Adonai’s health are beside the point.) I leave early in the day with Ishak at my side, and I arrive at Terrastella before nightfall. We spend the night in a fancy inn, and Ishak, predictably, complains about it, though not nearly enough to make us leave. (I’m used to his complaining by now – and, besides, I know how he actually feels about sleeping on silken sheets.) The last time I was here, it was to hunt herbs. This time, it is for something more official.
I assume that they send me because I am an Ieshan and a doctor. I’ve never been much good at being the former, but I do have some sense of official duties, and I’m not entirely unaccustomed to meeting with particularly influential people. (You could argue that I brush shoulders with them daily, though I don’t know if I see my siblings so often anymore.) I am only influential in the medical sense, and I spend as little of my time socializing as possible, but I am here regardless.
(And I try not to think that it is too much of a bother, or of how many patients I could be seeing in the meantime; I tell myself that this will be useful, that it is always to our benefit to share knowledge with each other, to assist in keeping the peace. I’m not sure that I believe it. There are certainly better people to have chosen for the task.)
I have breakfast with Ishak, and I split off from him to find the Champion, though I know him well enough to know that he hasn’t really left my side; more likely than not, he’ll be within earshot for the entirety of our conversation. I know him too well to be bothered by it.
(He is the one person whose invasions of privacy I don’t mind.)
The Champion reminds me of a sunbeam, or maybe of Adonai. She is pale gold and blue-eyed in the bright way that he used to be, before he fell ill. She is probably lovely, from the heart-shaped mark on her forehead to her elegantly-crafted form, but I barely notice, even when she greets me with a smile that is twice as bright and warm as the early spring morning. You must be Ruth. I’m Elena. I already know that any of my gestures will pale in comparison to hers, that the effort is completely futile because I am wrong, but I force myself to press a polite, businesslike smile across my face regardless, because I know that I should. I know that it is the right thing to do here, the thing that I normal person would do, and, above all else, I need to be normal at times like these. “I am. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I say, and I suppose that it is pleasant enough. (At least it is an opportunity to escape the Ieshan manor for a while.) I’m not precisely sure what to say, or what to expect, but I’ll admit to having some (scientific) curiosity about Terrastella; hopefully this meeting will be productive, if nothing else.
(And – perhaps I can probe her about her thoughts on my brother’s condition, which is more interesting to me than anything the land of salt and sea might be able to offer.)
@Elena || <3 || june jordan, "the morning on the mountains"
HE FEEDS ME RED MEAT / HE WATCHES THE BLOOD POOL IN MY MOUTHlaughs at my red teeth❂please tag Ruth! contact is encouraged, short of violence
She remembers when she had been young, before the deaths, before Murmuring Rivers, before Lilli even, before a lot of things. She had thought her father to be invincible. That he was made from oceanic rock and stone, carved from the very mountains that surrounded her home. He was the beginning and the end, and to see him lose, to see the blood coating his crimson coat, even when there was such a fight in his eyes, had been unsettling. She had loved her father for the fire in his eye, the strength to his stance, but he had been devoured by the ice.
His fire, it seems, was simply not strong enough.
From the ocean, the wind comes and tugs at the blonde strands of Elena’s hair. There is something in her smile that says it is not so easily one as it used to be. That she is having to fight and fight for this happiness she tries to feel. His quiet rejection of her still sits behind her ribs.
It remains stuck between her teeth. It is a constant ache, a biting reminder of the fact that despite the fact that he does not dismiss her, and despite the fact that they have a child together, he does not love her.
He had not returned the same love that had blossomed in her chest like a toxic flower. She had let it blossom. She had let it flourish.
The vines of it wrapped around her rib cage, dug thorns into her heart.
It stole her breath and she did nothing to displace it. Until that day he left her, until the day that daughter was born.
It was poisonous and she knows that if it ever came back, it ever bloomed, that it would kill her but she cannot bring herself to pull it out the roots of it. She does not water it, but neither does she rip it from the soil.
The only thing that gives her reprieve are the quiet moments with her daughter. The moments where she gets to learn about all the ways she sees the world. Where she can show her how blue the ocean is, and how friendly the creatures of the world are.
She aches for that little girl now, even while she stands her.
The emotion that the girl brings is one of stone, it is not foreign to her, Alvaro had offered her as much. Elena reads whatever sneaks underneath her skin, there are no ill intentions, but there is something rock solid and heavy that settles in the back of the empath’s mind. “Agreed,” she replies easily to the medic. “Please, join me, we will travel to the gardens,” she says and leaders the way before leaning slightly towards her. “You are Adonai’s sister?” She asks softly in silver tones. Elena knows the answer, but ever since her session with the pale stallion, she has been curious. “I treated him once, filled in for another Dusk medic,” she talks easily. Elena is not chatty, but she has always possessed her mother’s warm confidence and flows effortlessly into conversations. “Ahhh here we are,” she says and opens it wide. “Please, take whatever healing agents you need,” she says. “I heard there was a special technique used in Day for healing ailments of the stomach, I was hoping you could teach me. Dusk could benefit from it.”
those are the kind of girls who try to save wolves
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