There comes to her, in the chilly morning breeze, a thin sort of…
Emptiness. An emptiness that is not calm, nor peace. It never could be. But is an absence, and for that, she is grateful. New light spills over the horizon, bathing her sturdy, pale form in buttery light. As always, she notes the time of day by the warmth and the direction; knows when dawn ekes out a place over night by the way she sees light not in how it looks, but how it touches her.
She hates the aching, uncertain absence of Grímmunder. She would rather have his vision than not but she is well attuned to her darkness. It had been her life, her home, for years before the gods made him out of clay and feathers and branded him alive with their breath.
Without him, she could persevere in the cautious, guarded way a sightless one must—but she does so with a heavy heart and a wild anxiety in place of knowing just where he is.
They are all—all four of them; for, yes, she believes Eirlys lives somewhere, protected among the unliving—lost on the stranger tides of this seething existence. Pulled to and from by a moon, unknown; parting and colliding as waves in sprays of white and hopeful water. But she wishes they wouldn’t. She wishes they could anchor themselves to each other, if not to somewhere. At least to the vague notion that they could be afforded their happiness one day, that they could be allowed to be and not fear the next parting glance. That they could be given a sliver of peace upon which to build around.
If she can’t have them, she can never be content. Not really. But she takes a moment—her gut pitted with a whisper of guilt as she does, that thing that suffers no respite until the search is done—as autumn rolls crisply over the expanse of softly shifting grass to meet her in the middle. In the distance, she hears the soft footfalls of a herd of animals; the sound of a bird calling—not Grim. She is small and delicate, despite her hale shape, the pale, piercing gaze cast out across a world she cannot appreciate for the way the dew glitters in the peaking sunlight. The way she fits in it like a wild pearl; a queer and quietly lost soul.
Her eyes flutter shut, though they don’t need to, head dropping to nip at the thick-growing grass, its edges burnt by the pressures of seasonal drifts.
she listens to wind secrets and echoes of distant star songs
T
he grass feels different here compared to the prairie back home. It's softer and longer. It's almost as if it'll just keep growing and growing forever until each blade towers over me. I wonder if it'd be a jungle then and I could pretend to be a wild tiger stalking my prey.
That's the game I play now even though the grass isn't that long. I can imagine it is and how there are all these creatures around me. The bird that just called out isn't a bird, but a dragon. I like to think that it's my dragon looking out for me like Fable does with Isra. Only, this one is bigger and pure white with glowing blue eyes. She would be named Sapphire for her eyes and she would have the fiercest cry of them all.
I start to run, not caring if I might be trampling the grass underneath me. I scare some bugs out of their hiding places and can hear the frantic fluttering of their wings as they flee. I find myself laughing just from the pure bliss of it all. I know the Dawn soldier and I are on our way back to Denocte, but that doesn't mean I can't have a little fun here before we leave Terrastella.
My imagination has run so wild, I almost don't notice the lady eating grass ahead of me. I'm a bit surprised because she looks just like the colors my dragon would be. Am I in a dream? Is this my dragon after all, but shapeshifted? My jaw drops as I hurry over. I'm eager to find out for sure.
"Are you a dragon?" I ask, not realizing just how ridiculous the question is to an adult. My imagination feels real to me, which is why I can't believe she's standing here. I guess even if she isn't my dragon, she's pretty and looks like she would be friendly. Though, I kind of hope it's true and I can go back and tell Zahra I met a shapeshifting dragon.
In her darkness, she sees them much in the same way she sees the sun. By way of feel, alone. By how they cast their warmth over her like brilliant stars. By how they touch upon the earth around her, plucking ripples on the surface of her still waters and sending their love back to her in waves ‒ thrusting upwards into the starless abyss, like landmarks on an empty map. They are the way they move, rapping their tattoos into the ground, leaving hoofprints like braille for her to feel.
One, tiny and wan; the other, large and beset upon.
The rest, unknown.
So, when the girl makes way across the sea of grass ‒ frolicking in the imaginations of her own merry fantasy ‒ the Skald raises her head and turns those clouded, bright eyes in her direction. Searching and hopeful. It is, as with the phantasmal ways they pay her visitations in her dreams and reverie, a cruel kind of familiarity that settles in her gut, heavy as stones. She does not, as she so hoped she would by now, swiftly separate the small beating of hooves from the image of her Eirlys. It happens in a slow sort of way ‒ for at first it wears his skin and she can feel him getting nearer, her heart rapping like a wounded bird against her breastbone. The knowing, logical part of her must begin the unravelling. The parting and the mourning; and it is in this way that Edda is sentenced to bury him, over and over again.
His spiriting away had happened so suddenly ‒ so soon ‒ that she had not been able to offer him a goodbye; a comfort like tithes for his soul. She had not been able to reconcile it with herself in a way that felt like enough.
So he haunts her.
Her pink nostrils flare, finding the scent of the little stranger amongst the earthiness of late fall. Her stomach clenches, the finality ‒ the certainty ‒ a blow that almost compels her to surrender. To flare like a white flag on the wind and consign herself to the aimless without ‒ to accept what had always felt unacceptable. That she was never meant to have them in the first place ‒ her loves and her anchors ‒ that they had been eidolon and fantasy of her own.
But she does not, because she is stronger than she looks.
‘Are you a dragon?’ Edda blinks, head tilting ever so slightly. She remembers these things ‒ (I can speak frog, wanna hear, mumma? RRRrRrrribitttt) ‒ the beautiful flights of a child’s mind. Those reminders of magic hiding behind the veil of the mundane. “A dragon?” her voice is whispery and thin, she is still surprised to have found it after such a long time. “I have seen plenty of dragons ‒ and ghosts of dragons ‒ enough to admit that I am not one,” she shifts her weight, her bright, senseless gaze settling on where she hopes the girl stands, brows lifted, “are there many dragons here?”
she listens to wind secrets and echoes of distant star songs
P
art of me is sad when she says she's not a dragon, so I guess I can rule out her being a shapeshifter. I know those exist too though, so it would've been cool to finally meet one and see if they could shift into all kinds of things. I would've asked her to shift into a dragon for sure, but maybe into a phoenix too (mostly so I could see one for myself).
But I guess this is fine too and she seems nice either way. She mentions seeing other dragons for herself - and ghosts?? This is the part that interests me the most. I try to think of how many dragons I've seen here, but I think the only one I really know is Fable. I've heard of many though.
"I think so," I say honestly. "There's a huuuuge one that lives back home. His name is Fable. He might look kind of scary at first, but he's actually really nice." I think back to the first time I met him and I was pretty scared. I don't think I'd want to be on him or Isra's bad side.
As I watch the lady more closely, I realize that her eyes are not looking right at me like someone normally would. It's almost like she's looking… above me? "Wait, is someone behind me?" I turn around to try and see if it was the soldier, but there isn't anyone there, it's just me and the lady. When I look back at her again, I then realize there's a cloudiness to her eyes that I didn't see before. Then it hits me - she's blind and I feel really embarrassed.
"O-oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize…" I try to apologize, but throat feels tight and I don't really know what to say. I feel really bad for her and can't imagine what things must be like not being able to see the world. I figure the best thing I could do is change the subject.
"So um, w-what are dragon ghosts like? What are the dragons that you know?" I hope I didn't offend her and that this is enough to change the subject to something good. If not, I might just keep stuttering and have to run off in a panic to find the soldier guy before I say anything worse.
