[P] Winters end

[Luvena]

Luvena

The stories she had told them, of course, had been sugarcoated.  Some were old Herstillian fairy tales. Many of which cautioned against magic, and so she spun them in her own way, so that the boys knew to be cautious of magic, but not to fear it.  She told them the story of Herstials fall, but in her version, Obyana was a big black dragon. A creature with no soul or remorse. Both were true of the man as well.  She left out the part where she had fallen in love and married him. The part where he had taken then crown first. In her story, he flew in on an east wind, carrying the smell of smoke, and he burned the kingdom down and carried her family away in his claws.  Later she told them, that it had been the same dragon who had burned the woods. This was a lie, although that time, it really had been a dragon. 

Drawn out of her thoughts once more she laughed at the girl's response. "Perhaps!" she replied. "Tired souls as we must be drawn to Novus" she smiled softly. Wondering if Liatris was tired if he was alive. If he too would be drawn into Novus' grasp.  If he would become entangled in one of the four realms of time, as she had been ensnared in Dusk. Taken by the beauty of the setting sun, just before the skies turned purple.  "I will. But I intend to spend my final years enjoying what I can to it's fullest. Anyone who knew me before would tell you that I am as stubborn as a goat, and truthfully I won't deny it"

She could see sorrow blooming in Elena's eyes. It seemed the golden mare too had been through far too much in her life. She gestured beside her "Come lay down. The herbs can be finished later" she invited her. She knew what it was to be broken, to be lost. But they were in the present now, and if nothing else they could have each others company.  She nodded as the mare made her confession. "It's never easy" she murmured softly. "It's easy to wish we hadn't but..." she paused, thinking back to Elysium, to Herstial.  "We can't change what's been done." 

She closed her eyes as she pictured them. She did so often, to make sure she didn't forget. But even so, details slipped her mind. Did Liatris have Cavalier's horns? or did Eremurus?  Whose eyes did Liatris have? forgetting that the answer was neither.  "I suppose you'll find out" she suggested "I'm not sure anyone knows until it happens. I never thought it was mine until I met Cavalier, and then things changed"  

She shook her head sharply at the mares next words. "Don't be" she chided, her words sharper then usual. "It's not your job to be sorry for the sorrows of others. You can share in my sorrow as I share in yours, by no means stop yourself from feeling. But don't be sorry.  If you're sorry for everyone, and everything they've done. How will you have any room left to apologize for yourself. Aknowledge that you are sorry for your own past, and grow from that." she didn't say it harshly, or to let down the girl. But rather to show her to care for herself too. Luvena had spent a good time being sorry for the actions of everyone else. For Oberon when he had lost his mate. For all the citizens of the woods who had been thrown by the changes rapidly tossed at them. For Cavalier. And, it had nearly destroyed her. She had learned her lesson the hard way. But, she had learned it, and she would not forget it.

"tell me" she started "Where do you come from? What's your story?"

@Elena

Table © Camy

[Elena]

take this burden away from me
and bury it before it buries me

Her entire life she has always felt like either not enough, or too much. Not enough softness, not enough kindness; too intense, too brash. She has fooled herself into thinking she doesn’t care, that no one else mattered. She could be alone, she could leave behind anything and anyone, and she would be fine. She didn't need a lover, she tells herself, a useless chant that she tries desperately to carve into her heart where forgiveness had once been written. And all she had was herself, just as it should have been, just as she should have kept it.

And little by little she can feel parts of that foolhardy strength beginning to wear away. Every time she is wronged, every time her already fragile trust in someone is cast carelessly aside, she loses a little bit more of her resolve. But she doesn’t know how to completely fall apart. She only knows how to steel herself, and how to dig deep beneath the hurt and the sorrow and pull all the remainders of happiness, her smiles, her kindness to the surface for others to use when she can no longer use it on herself.

But, sometimes, she is just so tired. “Maybe,” she offers the mare and for just a moment she looks older than she should before that face turns youthful once more.“I have found that far more souls have traveled to Novus than have been born on its soil,” she comments. Herself, Luvena, Michael, Anandi, the list goes on, all once strangers, all now inhabitants. “You are still young Luvena,” she says to the mare only because she had seen the lines on Valerio and Aletta’s faces. Lines her parents would never have because the good died young. “And what do you find enjoyment in?” She asks, curious, what brings a smile to another’s face and maybe if it can bring one to Elena’s too.

Elena follows the simple and sweet suggestion, laying the herbs down upon the hospital floor. She moves beside her. The golden girl wears grief well and happiness better. In truth, Elena has made leaving at art form, the comforting embraces, the sorrow filled goodbyes, the gentle promises to see each other again. Elena is elegant in her partings and cruel in her departures. “I cant go back,” she simply says with a shake of her head. She cant go back, not there and not there either.

“I am pretty sure it is not in the stars for me,” she says with an admission. Twins, beautiful twins, children. “I tend to enjoy the company of monsters. It’s one of the few failings of my character.” There is just enough seriousness in this reply to acknowledge the truth that it happens to be. Still she lets a smile flicker across her mouth, willing to jest in the face of another truth. Delicate things that had gone astray in the woods to fall beneath Tunnel’s caress until they shattered.

“Cavalier,” she says letting the name rest on her tongue of her companion’s friend. “Was that your one?” She asks, your one love. Elena sometimes she thinks she missed it the morning on a mountainside after a night spent together. (“Can I see you again?” “No.”)

Glacial eyes blink at Luvena’s words with a compassionate sweep of long, dark lashes. “It hurts, to see another in pain.” Elena, forever the empath. “I can offer you no more than my company—I hope that is enough for now,” Elena gives to her with a smile.

Her question (such a simple one) is almost enough to drag out the ghosts, but she refuses them entry—refuses to give them access to such a precious, soft moment with a newfound companion. “I come from an ancient land, Windskeep it was called, a place of wind makers. They were at war with another land when I was born.” She had known the bitter taste of war and wears the weight of it still. “I was the only child of both my parents, they died when I was still quite young,” she says. “I went to another place then, Murmuring Rivers, to be raised by my cousin,” she says, intentionally leaving out the part where she had no choice, where she had a price on her head and her father had been killed when they were trying to escape. “Since then I have traveled quite a good deal, until coming here that is,” she sighs. “I hope this is the end.” She says it with some sort of resounding hope. And as she lays silently then beside Luvena, there is a moment, a fleeting moment where she pretends it would be true. Her heart beat slows and she finds those blue eyes going hazy with the afternoon warmth of the winter sun.

There is a voice though that stays in the back of her mind, that tells her, the love, the pain, the ache is far from over. It bares its teeth before it slinks into the shadows, allowing Elena a moment to rest—for now.

so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me

@Luvena :)

[Luvena]

Luvena

She smiled softly at the mare. "I am young" she affirmed "But I was never meant to live a long life. Truthfully fate told me to die two years ago, and it was only by the grace of Elysiums firstborns that I eluded that fate. But I will fight until I can't anymore."  Mostly this was something she could accept. She had accepted it then. She only wished that she could die in peace knowing her children were safe. But no one could have everything they wished for. She feared she had spent all of her wishes by now. She closed her eyes in thought. "I like to wander when I can" she answered softly. "See what the lands have to offer, what new discoveries lay before me.  And the seaside... I like watching the waters change.  But really I just enjoy the company of others. being alone was never something I was fond of. I would much rather talk, and exchange stories. What about yourself?"  Surely the golden girl before her could find some enjoyment in her life. 

"me neither" she replied gently, touching her nose to Elena's shoulder, a gesture of comfort. "Our homes are behind us... but at least we are here. and safe."  she paused as the girl mentioned being drawn to monsters. "I know how you feel..." she murmured. "I married the man who burned down my kingdom" she attempted a soft smile "Not my finest moment."  She remembered it so vividly. Before she had even had a chance to walk to the alter, the willow branches had been set ablaze, and she was stumbling along a beaten path to the woods, her mother and father beside her. She remembered seeing her reflection in the pool of blood around them after.  She didn't look back after that, not once.

"she was my mate" she replied, turning her head away slightly, to hide the tears brimming in her eyes. "She saved me after a forest fire. My lungs were filled with smoke, and it was she who found me outside the woods. after that, we were rather inseparable." she paused "And then she left me... not a word, not a single goodbye, took our son Eremurus with her. She was my love... but I don't think she'll be the only one. I think you can have more than one great love in your life... I hope to find it again one day"

She listened to the girl's story attentively. They were more alike then she thought. She laid her head  on the floor, against the mares chest. "You and me both" 
@Elena

I think this work as a good closer :)

Table © Camy