[P] {Fall} Is Every Goodbye a True Goodbye?

[Below Zero]

B e l o w Z e r o

I don't care what they're going to say, let the storm rage on
the cold never bothered me anyway

Shock. Pain. Horror. So many emotions seemed to swirl around the young Treader - though perhaps not for the reasons her little sister might believe. It wasn't horror or alarm that her sister was alive but the expectation that her deeds, her actions of the past had caught up to her via the hands of fate and now it was time for her to be dragged to hell. For surely this was her sister's spirit here to damn her for what she had done. And so Bel had quivered, shrinking back. A large and powerful wing suddenly surrounded her and Bel was immediately relieved by the presence of her friend even as she struggled at the sight of what her sister must have looked like alive. Bel was beginning to spiral though, dragged down the path of fear and denial and disbelief - afraid for it to really be Pol, afraid for it to not be her. She didn't know what too say, what to do. She was spiraling to the point she didn't even notice the large male's nuzzle.

Her sister's words barely reached her, half of them seeming to be ignored for the sake of those six words, I am alive... I never died. Still she flinched when accused of leaving her on the ice, never checking back. Bel visibly recoiled from the spatted, emotional dagger-like words her eyes wide, horrified, shocked, distraught. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. That wasn't what it was supposed to be. That wasn't how it was supposed to happen. She did go back to check. She paused briefly where they had abandoned her behind, when she ran from the pod. She hadn't been there. She hadn't been there. SHE HADN'T BEEN THERE! Bel's breath was rapid, in and out, in and out, the breaths quick, rapid, even as her entire body seemed to quiver, seemed to struggle to accept what her sister had said. She hadn't been there. She had checked. She had checked. She hadn't been there. She had never assumed, never imagined that would mean she was alive elsewhere, she had assumed death had taken her, her body spoilt by the predators that hunted the area. She hadn't been there.


She barely heard the words through the sudden water that was rushing loudly through her ears, rescued . . . nomads . . . why . . . bother to explain . . . would you . . . care . . . . Bel's breath was in terrified pants as her knees had buckled beneath her, tears streaking down her cheeks, the salty trails criss crossing down the planes and angles of her scaled jaw from both sets of eyes. Her sister . . . was alive . . . and judging by the anger, the spitting, biting remarks, the coldness . . . . Bel always knew she was to blame, but seeing her sister clearly place just as much blame on her, so much anger and resentment . . . . The tears never stopped, her body shaking, "I never . . . I never stopped . . . caring." Her words whispered quietly through the air between she and her sister, "I never . . . stopped . . ." Her head bowed, muzzle touching close to her chest, "It was my fault . . . I left you behind . . . I abandoned you . . . . It's my fault. It's all my fault." Her body shook, her words broken, spoken between rapid breaths as her eyes closed, fin lowering flat against her back. "It's all my fault . . . I thought I had . . .

"I thought I had killed you."

"Bel"
Yukime
@Polar North
Notes:: T.T