The trip to Denocte had not been an easy one. Fiona had been injured, weak, in shock. But while within the walls of the Night Court she had started to heal. While it had been kind of their new queen, Isra, to give them refuge, the court of the moon and stars would never be her home. She would never grow to know its streets or its people. While she had been there, more than anything she had sought solace, a place to be on her own.
The trip back from Denocte had been easier. Her side had healed, though sometimes she still twinged at the memory of glass slicing through her skin and there would always be a faint scar there, cutting across the lavender and ivory sky of her skin. Her mind had been clearer, her body stronger, and she was glad to be home in her court of twilight, surrounded by those she knew and cared for.
It was true that she should not have gone alone, back to her house, for the first time. Perhaps she should have waited, asked another to join her, but perhaps her pride was a little too great. Or her self-preservation not great enough. Whatever the case, the Champion of Community found herself standing before her home, or what was left of it. Although much of the structure remained intact the walls were scoured with angry black burn marks, and within much was reduced to ash and half-destroyed rubble.
The furniture her father had built, worked most of his life creating, she wasn’t how much of it was salvageable. All of her books, years of sketches, exchanges, thoughts. They were nothing now, left to her memories for those she could remember. Her vision blurred with tears and her chest tightened as she stood in the middle of everything that had ever been hers and was now gone. Even when she left, breathing fast and feeling as though she were physically in pain, the truth follow, clinging to her in ashen streaks on her skin.
After some searching she'd found a notebook and a pen, but unlike the many she had kept in her home this one was empty. There were no flowers pressed between sheets of paper, no carefully scrawled pieces of conversations. No drawings but for a few sketches, started and then abandoned, half finished lines with no purpose. In the past, Fiona had always enjoyed starting a new notebook but now this felt as empty as the blank ivory pages.
At length she discovered herself within the citadel walls, wandering past the courtyard and into a quiet room. Hesitantly, and clinging to the book in her possession, Fiona lowered herself onto a cushion and then opening to one of the pages, she began to draw. Instead of thinking about what her subject should be, she allowed her mind to drift. As the pen scratched over the paper, slowly, an image started to come to life.
The trip back from Denocte had been easier. Her side had healed, though sometimes she still twinged at the memory of glass slicing through her skin and there would always be a faint scar there, cutting across the lavender and ivory sky of her skin. Her mind had been clearer, her body stronger, and she was glad to be home in her court of twilight, surrounded by those she knew and cared for.
It was true that she should not have gone alone, back to her house, for the first time. Perhaps she should have waited, asked another to join her, but perhaps her pride was a little too great. Or her self-preservation not great enough. Whatever the case, the Champion of Community found herself standing before her home, or what was left of it. Although much of the structure remained intact the walls were scoured with angry black burn marks, and within much was reduced to ash and half-destroyed rubble.
The furniture her father had built, worked most of his life creating, she wasn’t how much of it was salvageable. All of her books, years of sketches, exchanges, thoughts. They were nothing now, left to her memories for those she could remember. Her vision blurred with tears and her chest tightened as she stood in the middle of everything that had ever been hers and was now gone. Even when she left, breathing fast and feeling as though she were physically in pain, the truth follow, clinging to her in ashen streaks on her skin.
After some searching she'd found a notebook and a pen, but unlike the many she had kept in her home this one was empty. There were no flowers pressed between sheets of paper, no carefully scrawled pieces of conversations. No drawings but for a few sketches, started and then abandoned, half finished lines with no purpose. In the past, Fiona had always enjoyed starting a new notebook but now this felt as empty as the blank ivory pages.
At length she discovered herself within the citadel walls, wandering past the courtyard and into a quiet room. Hesitantly, and clinging to the book in her possession, Fiona lowered herself onto a cushion and then opening to one of the pages, she began to draw. Instead of thinking about what her subject should be, she allowed her mind to drift. As the pen scratched over the paper, slowly, an image started to come to life.
@Asterion
