Moments after it arrived in Solterra, a flurry of soft feathers and beating wings, Bexley had sent the owl away with a snarl and a gilded fuck you, and then she had stood holding the letter out of the window of her quarters, waiting to drop it into some howling nighttime wind, and had not been able to.
She hated herself for it.
Armageddon, then, in the long minutes that followed. Unwrapping the letter, pulling at that silver ribbon, already she felt that something inarguably wrong was to come from it, that this half-second was to be her penultimate of peace. The night was deep-blue and cool when that letter arrived, and for hours - perhaps until the sun rose, she couldn’t remember - Bexley turned circles in that sandstone tower, reread the lines of thin handwriting, feeling viciously unsettled by the reminiscence suddenly forced upon her. That crush of rocks - the gauzy dusted light, filtering in from overhead - each passover of the letter is one more pebble in her lungs, is another long-standing reminder of the scar on her face, moonlight and lace.
She wanted to un-read it. To rip it, to burn it, to let it drift away.
But reality is omnipresent, and Bexley is steel, is real, is tooth and claw, and it is with that sense of iron-will that she forces herself from Solterra in the first warm moments of the morning, hair braided, smelling of sandalwood, and strides alone toward Ruris.
The sky is glowing gauzy-pink, shredded in places with purple and red; a cool breeze, the first of autumn, blows cool-bright against Bexley’s small body and pulls the sparkle of tears from her blue eyes. Her necklace clinks quietly in the buffeting wind. Head pulled down against her chest, white hair swirling in a loose cloud, she trudges toward the highest point of Eleutheria and fights the nausea so imminent in the pit of her stomach, so blackout and overwhelming. How long has it been since they’ve seen each other? Months and months, and who knows how Rhoswen has changed since returning to Denocte? Is she moon-bright now? Has she given up on Solis, on Solterra, on her love of the sun?
Are either of them the same girls they were when the met in that aureate desert?
Of course not. On the rise of the slope ahead of her, Bexley catches sight of a svelte silhouette, red and dark and red again, and her heart thrums wildly in the cage of her chest. Feral and anxious, she forces herself toward Rhoswen despite the lead in her legs, and when she speaks, it is strange and deep, uncertain and disembodied: Nice morning, hm?
@rhoswen
She hated herself for it.
Armageddon, then, in the long minutes that followed. Unwrapping the letter, pulling at that silver ribbon, already she felt that something inarguably wrong was to come from it, that this half-second was to be her penultimate of peace. The night was deep-blue and cool when that letter arrived, and for hours - perhaps until the sun rose, she couldn’t remember - Bexley turned circles in that sandstone tower, reread the lines of thin handwriting, feeling viciously unsettled by the reminiscence suddenly forced upon her. That crush of rocks - the gauzy dusted light, filtering in from overhead - each passover of the letter is one more pebble in her lungs, is another long-standing reminder of the scar on her face, moonlight and lace.
She wanted to un-read it. To rip it, to burn it, to let it drift away.
But reality is omnipresent, and Bexley is steel, is real, is tooth and claw, and it is with that sense of iron-will that she forces herself from Solterra in the first warm moments of the morning, hair braided, smelling of sandalwood, and strides alone toward Ruris.
The sky is glowing gauzy-pink, shredded in places with purple and red; a cool breeze, the first of autumn, blows cool-bright against Bexley’s small body and pulls the sparkle of tears from her blue eyes. Her necklace clinks quietly in the buffeting wind. Head pulled down against her chest, white hair swirling in a loose cloud, she trudges toward the highest point of Eleutheria and fights the nausea so imminent in the pit of her stomach, so blackout and overwhelming. How long has it been since they’ve seen each other? Months and months, and who knows how Rhoswen has changed since returning to Denocte? Is she moon-bright now? Has she given up on Solis, on Solterra, on her love of the sun?
Are either of them the same girls they were when the met in that aureate desert?
Of course not. On the rise of the slope ahead of her, Bexley catches sight of a svelte silhouette, red and dark and red again, and her heart thrums wildly in the cage of her chest. Feral and anxious, she forces herself toward Rhoswen despite the lead in her legs, and when she speaks, it is strange and deep, uncertain and disembodied: Nice morning, hm?
@rhoswen
