She is strong because she came out of the pits with hellhounds nipping at her heels. She is strong because she learned inside of her there was fire, burning and bright, hot enough to leave charr and smoke in her wake. She is strong because she found it in herself to move past grief and find the love of a family once more.
She is weak.
She is weak because she followed him, demanded to know what he was doing with her and when he said terrible things she never left, only hung onto him. Elena had needed no leash, she was not some dog to pulled around by a rope, but the end of it was held in her hand, just waiting for him to give it a tug.
There is the smell of spring in the air. She almost instinctively turns to look for Lilli. It was almost uncanny. She smelled flowers, she looked for crimson. Lilli. The girls when they had been younger, had loved to explore the ancient valley of Paraiso looking for all types of flowers that it held. Elena loved her sunflowers, and in one particular area of their home, they grew tall and beautiful in a large cluster. Elena would let herself get lost in the rows and rows of flowers as the sun touched upon her back, making her shine as bright as the yellow petals. They were simpler times, when a flower blooming was enough for Elena to forget all her troubles.
Spring had come to Novus. Elena could feel the sun was a little bit warmer, the sky a little more blue, and she felt a little bit happier. There was a sense that she was becoming more and more at home in Terrastella, the Dusk Court. But, despite this, Elena still feels the need to explore. She wants to see every inch that Novus has to offer her, resulting in her spending time away from Dusk, and typically at the ocean where she has found a certain ease at collecting her thoughts.
Today Elena has traded the blue sea, for a sea of green, standing amongst the plains as the spring breeze teases through the blades. It finds her locks of gossamer and tangles through it before rolling upon her golden skin. Elena does something strange then, maybe something silly, but she takes off with a kick of her heels, running with a sort of reckless abandon she has not felt for some time. The breeze blows against her face and her creamy tresses stream out behind her like some sort of proud banner. It is only when her legs feel shaky and her breathing quickens that she comes to a halt, her thoughts far behind her, trying desperately to catch up.
For now, Elena feels—peace.
* e l e n a
in the dark I’ll pray for the return of the light the sunflower daughter of benjamin and beylani
medic of dusk.
The spring was bright and kind and the sun smiled on the world; El Toro smiled back. He had status now, and a name worth knowing, and when they stared he knew they were not thinking of the black bull or of his wingless shoulders but of the Champion, the shining marble stallion with a lion at his side, tracking ice and fire step by step.
He decided to take a small vacation from Solterra; the sun burned hotter every day that passed and soon he would be huddled beneath a cloak. Try as he might, his skin would always get burned.
What Hajduk spotted Toro did not know, but it sent the young lion charging off. The glee that sparked through their connection sent the white stallion right after him, galloping across the plains. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done so with a light heart.
It is then that he sees her: a lovely golden mare, cutting the breeze like sunlight across the grasses. Hajduk falls back to bound alongside Toro as they approach the mare, and soon they are running next to her. ”Hello, sunshine!” he calls, grinning.
Some days, she convinced herself that she could no longer smell him. She convinced herself that he was fading from her memory, that with each breath she was burning him from her mind as if he had never taken up space there. She strolled beside the sea, wandered the familiar curves of the cliffs of Dusk, and she could almost believe that he had never existed, or that he never existed to her. It was just a brief interlude in her life. She woke up and ignored the ache in her bones and piercing pain in her chest.
It was a lie though. Of course it was. Her heart still fluttered when she dreamt at night, still hammered in her chest when she imagined him touching her. Sometimes when the forests grew thick, she still looked for his presence, and it still hurt. With each breath, each memory, it scorched her insides, her own fire used against her, a silent pain she bore quietly. If she ignored it, perhaps it would eventually go away.
She should hate him, but Elena still cannot. Her heart is a tiny thing and it only has enough room to hold love and loneliness and grief, often all at the same time.
But as she runs through the breeze all she senses is the bright world around her. Tunnel is left in his forest, scared to crawl his way through the trees and Elena is free to forget him before he will crawl back into her nightmares to scar her soul and chill her blood.
Sunshine.
She hears the nickname and it stills her for a moment before she realizes it is shine and not flower as she has so often been called and her heart resumes its beating in her chest. Elena slows to a trot, a bout of laughter catching her like a butterfly in a net. She waits for her new companions to slow down before she tosses her head in the air, that white forelock flops to the side and the white heart birthmark stands against her skin of gold.
Her grin matches his own, so eager to share her carefree joy with another. “Well hello to you too, Moonbeam,” she jests with joking narrowed eyes before they open wide once more like blue skies. Elena looks to his side, to the lion, and she thinks of Lie and in turn thinks of Kensa.
Then Hyaline.
Then Lilli.
Then she stops.
She cant do that anymore.
“It is so good to see another today,” she says, means it. “I’m Elena, and who might you both be?”
* e l e n a
in the dark I’ll pray for the return of the light the sunflower daughter of benjamin and beylani
medic of dusk.
He thinks of Her, of that scarlet, winged beauty. How she danced just out of reach, how the knuckles of her wings beat against him and how his teeth scraped against her, how she laughed, how she succeeded, grew, and in the end, could only shake her head. He wasn’t enough, and never would be. Not for her.
He hasn’t thought of her in a long time. She doesn’t dog his thoughts, or sit at the edges, or beat against his skull with her wings every time he sees a pegasus. His hate for them has slowed from a boil to a simmer, if only because this world doesn’t seem to care about the same things he does. It’d be a miracle, if he could care about the new things, and not what he carried on his back through the mist.
She’s even prettier up close, this girl. Beautiful, even, all gold and ivory and sky blue. ”Well hello to you too, Moonbeam.” Toro likes her smile; he likes how everything about her says joy and means it. He smiles back, and Hajduk flops to the ground, sides still heaving.
”Name’s Toro. This is Hajduk. Elena is a beautiful name,” he says, a flirtatious smirk pulling on his lip. ”Can’t say I see too many girls as golden as you.” He’d be strutting like a peacock, were he going anywhere. Hajduk can only sigh and lay his head down.
take this burden away from me and bury it before it buries me
There is laughter that booms on her lips like sunflowers when a smile slips onto her face towards the boy and his companion. “He looks quite tired,” she says with another note of ready laughter from the golden girl. She offers the lion an amused grin. “Hello Toro,” she responds to him. His color, in some ways, reminds Elena of her mother, but the similarities end there, Beylani had been something else entirely, while she had been elegant, she did not seem to be as enchanting as the stallion before her was. Still, there is something comforting in the similarity, even if it was small.
Elena is a beautiful name, he says and it echoes back to another time, another place, another boy, but he was not pale like Toro, his skin was like shadows and his mane as silver as rays of starlight. “That’s a nice name. Nice name for a nice-looking girl.” He had said. “You’re very pretty, did you know that?” And the way Vadar had looked at her like a starving animal longing to touch her golden skin. But as she looks into Toro’s eyes with her own of silver blue, she sees none of those emotions in his own. It is promising the golden girl thinks. Novus was not Beqanna with its monsters and horrors. Or so she likes to believe as she shines a vivid, lustrous gold under the sun.
She laughs once more with his words. “You cant have met my family then,” she says in lilting tones with blue eyes trained on him. “The whole group of them gold, well most of them anyway,” she says. Her mother even, pale as she was, was like golden sunshine when it rose very first thing in the morning. Valerio, that rich brandished gold, her Uncle, her grandmother, everyone. “How about your family then?” She asks. “Are you the ‘white sheep’ of your family, or is there a matching set?” She has to ask, giggling slightly at her own joke. She glances upwards towards the sun before blinking away the light and returning to look at him once more. “Aren’t you ever worried about getting sunburned?”
so take away this apathy bury it before it buries me
He likes to make them laugh. Girls could be complicated and far out of reach, but they could also be silly and simple and not like to make anybody think too hard. ”He’s just tired of me,” Toro laughed with her. Hajduk huffed. Something dark passes over her expression, just briefly, and his stomach tightens as he wonders - just for a moment - if this is going to be hard. But then it’s gone, and she’s laughing again. ”They might all be gold, but I’m sure you’re the brightest among them.” Toro liked the way the sun glimmered across her face, trailing down her spine to her hip; such a coat incited only a poor man’s envy and awe from anyone else. ”Are you the ‘white sheep’ of your family, or is there a matching set?” Toro’s grin faltered; on the edge of his mind the abyss loomed. Hajduk opened one eye to watch him. ”You could call me the white sheep,” he said, pulling his smile back up as she giggled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
”Aren’t you ever worried about getting sunburned?”
”All the time. I live in Solterra, so as you can imagine I spend most of the year under a cloak or looking like a hot pepper…” He trailed off, watching a breeze try to pull her sunlit mane with it. ”If I’m not careful, you might give me just as bad of a burn.”
take this burden away from me and bury it before it buries me
“Are you that difficult to manage?” There is a hint of humor lingering in her words as she playfully asks them. Blue eyes sneak to the lion as he huffs and she laughs at the relationship between the two. She wonders, knows, she must not be the first girl he has talked to like this or smiled to like that. How many others has he found today? But there is a part of her that just doesn't care because she likes what he says and she is warmed by his smile.
For now, she will pretend she is the first and the only.
“Oh?” She says with her laughter again. “You are quite charming, you know that?” Charming, yes. She has seen the type, knows the type. Memories, pleasant though, of Caspian rush through her mind. He may have been flirty, and a bit too ‘free with his love,’ as her aunt once described men like him, but Elena found herself enjoying his company, even if she had done so begrudgingly and in spite of herself. She finds a similar flare with El Toro, and the palomino cannot say with an ounce of honesty in her heart, the she was annoyed by it.
She nods to his comment. “Blue eyed blonds, our family is full of them,” she says. “Be careful who you talk to now. You may think you see me, but it might really be my cousin!” She says, and she didn't mean Lilli for once, but Marcelo. The relation in House Legacy was obvious, even if they were unique, there was undoubtedly something that connected them all.
He catches her interest once more. “Solterra?” Elena has yet to travel to the kingdom drenched in sand (she cannot manage to part with her sea air or the flowers of Dawn for long enough.) And, if she is being honest, the sands frightened her. “Oh, I promise, I’m harmless,” she says before bumping him with her nose lightly. “Mostly.” She teases. “I haven't been to Solterra before,” she admits almost sheepishly. “I’ve seen a desert once in my life, do the dunes really roll like the ocean waves?”
so take away this apathy bury it before it buries me
She asks then if he’s difficult to manage - yes - and he laughs a little. He can hardly manage himself, and he’s certain that everyone else has it figured out. He tilts his head and grins when she calls him charming - this is going well, isn’t it - and says, ”I could say the same of you.” Not once did he think of whether she had Someone, or more than one; his heart beat for this moment and this alone. For now. He laughs at her joke but thinks: You, I could tell apart. Hajduk sighs exasperation through their bond. Unlikely.
His stomach trembles when she bumps his nose; what touch has he felt recently, save that of a sparring partner, a stranger passing in the market? His loneliness curdles, a sour bit of ocean water that never became a wave. Her words are almost lost on him but she says “wave” and he nods, absently, and then more vigorously. ”In their own way, they do. They move, sometimes. The wind rules them as it rules the ocean. There are storms, like the ocean, too, and there is absolute stillness like ice. You may know it better than you think.” And there is a softer smile, to the rescue. ”If you keep heading northeast you’ll reach the desert, or perhaps crest some hill that will let you see it. South of that you’ll find the oasis. It’s a paradise. But we’re not close. I could show you, if you’ve no other obligations. In this weather the journey will feel like nothing…”
take this burden away from me and bury it before it buries me
“You could,” she says to him, still smiling despite herself. He reminds her of Cassian, which really should send those blue eyes of hers rolling. But much like Cassian, his intentions feel harmless, and in that smile is not only charm, but a kindness she can appreciate. “But don’t.” She says with a laugh that catches on her lips like a flower landing softly on blades of grass.
Elena feels like the wind for half of a heartbeat. Maybe she could blame it on her heritage, the whole of them wind talkers, air walkers, storm bringers. The names change with the history and the time but it all means the same. But she feels like how the wind does on a summer’s day, darting through the tall blades of grass, how it feels running through leaves like fingers through hair, how it feels when it skips over the ocean like a smooth stone. And it feels, pleasant. It is why she would not be able to bring herself to show disdain for his charming nature, not when it provides her a breeze on which to run upon.
Golden ears tip forwards to catch his description of the sand dunes that cover his home. She knows one day, she will have to see for herself what beauty is harnessed there in the endless golden grains.
But it when he provides her an offer to show her that suddenly fear grips her heart. “No,” she says suddenly. The imaginations of endless of dunes, of nothing but rolling sand, of a golden ocean suddenly turn wicked, and she realizes she wants anything in this moment besides the stillness it could offer her. She blinks blue eyes, suddenly realizing how she could have sounded to the pale man. “I cant,” she says, and feels the guilt fill in her stomach in the place of an explanation for her behavior. “I’m sorry.” She offers in some sort of consolation. “But if you ever need a medic, come to Terrastella, or even if you don’t,” she says and she can off him so little else that she places a kiss upon his cheek. She smiles, mischievous, there is an impish way her cheek dimples. “I’m going to run again—and this time don't catch me,” she says like a secret before that golden body turns and she is once more swallowed into the wind.
so take away this apathy bury it before it buries me
This is going well, he thinks. This is going well, and she likes me. She’s beautiful, and she likes me, and this is going well. He is so giddy he is hardly listening; the hope is louder than her words, pounding in his ears like blood - or is it his blood, and not hope - and she laughs, and he’s not sure that she said something nice to him or not. He hopes he’s winning her over, now, with all his description. He thinks he is. But she says:
“No.”
Every part of him wilts like a sunflower (if, perhaps, the sun were beneath one’s feet, at the center of the earth, unreachable, obscured by miles and miles of dark, impenetrable stone and magma) but he pulls his smile up with all the strength left in him, which is not much. She reiterates: “I can’t.” Can’t as in, too busy? He hopes, but it’s - it’s an I don’t want to. “I’m sorry.” If you get hurt, find me. Well, you’re here now, is what he might say, if he knew how to recover from these sorts of things. And he did know. He used to do it all the time. But he’s too lonely now; every flirtation, every subtle look carries the weight of the world on its shoulders and every rejection feels like that world, the only world, has been dropped on his toes. He can’t return her mischief, her grin, and even as she kisses him on the cheek he thinks: alone. It’s a bee sting, not an apology.
“I’m going to run again, and this time, don’t catch me.” No, he thinks. I was a fool for thinking I could the first time.
He watches her go, and says nothing, and Hajduk says nothing, and together, they say nothing and watch her go. And when she is gone, which takes a long time, when the world is so flat, they stand there still, until Hajduk nudges him in the direction of the setting sun.
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