“Grace is just weakness, or so I've been told”
The nature of the desert is that it is always changing.
Teiran has learned more about surviving in the Mors than she, perhaps, ever thought was necessary. She has learned more, perhaps, about surviving than even as a young girl thrown to the wolves. It took a lot to turn her back on the court she has been loyal to her entire life, to smash open those gossamer cracks spiderwebbing all over the surface of her skin and admit that she could not protect them the way she was made to.
There is black tar leaking from those delicate fissures, all of the things inside of her dripping out across the desert with every day that passes. Teiran spends a long time pushing down the feelings of guilt, and regret, that are so unfamiiar to her. She pushes them down and buries them in the golden sand until the wind sweeps them free another day.
But she has gone, because a boy with amethsyt eyes had asked her too; and she has been trapped inside the screams of the pained and the breaths of the dying, and eyes that were blue, and then gold, and then black, following her everywhere. In the Mors, things have been more distant. She can convince herself that it was only the wind, howling over the dunes.
The nature of the desert is that it is always changing, and so too, does Solterra change.
The snake on the throne and his pet add their breaths to the ones suffocating her thoughts and the boy with the Amethyst eyes goes to the court. For awhile, Teiran stays. For awhile, she isn’t sure that she can go back. But it’s hard to ignore the urge of duty, the call of purpose, that almost seems to drift lazily across the Mors like breeze.
She goes. One step at a time, pushing down all of the things inside of her that have been leaking out of her like lifeblood. She goes, because the thing tethering her to the desert is gone, and she has only ever known how to be alone and now she isn’t quite sure what that means anymore. She goes because, through it all, she has always been and will always be one of Solterra’s soldiers.
Teiran isn’t expecting to see the Teryr, perched upon the wall of the court like some terrible divine death. But she also isn’t sure what she expected, because all Solterra knows is suffering and death. She wonders if it is all the court will ever know, no matter who sits on the throne, who walks the streets, who calls it home.
But when the beast launches itself down from the parapet, landing among the streets. Among her streets, the streets of the people she is meant to protect, something in the soldier shifts. It’s like a cog, or a wheel, fitting back into place after being jammed for too long. She draws her twin, serpentine daggers from their sheaths at her sides. The sounds of the wind whistling against their obsidian blades seals all of the cracks in her.
Something drops behind her sage eyes, some curtain, drawing them dark and blank. There is only a tunnel, from her to the Teryr, whose call is still echoing down every empty and dark alley in the court. There is a wild thing in her streets, calling for blood, and she is a predator again on the hunt.
Somewhere lurks the memory of a young girl with scared green eyes and protruding ribs, but she is lost among the thoughts of protect, guard, fight.
“Speaking.”
Teiran has learned more about surviving in the Mors than she, perhaps, ever thought was necessary. She has learned more, perhaps, about surviving than even as a young girl thrown to the wolves. It took a lot to turn her back on the court she has been loyal to her entire life, to smash open those gossamer cracks spiderwebbing all over the surface of her skin and admit that she could not protect them the way she was made to.
There is black tar leaking from those delicate fissures, all of the things inside of her dripping out across the desert with every day that passes. Teiran spends a long time pushing down the feelings of guilt, and regret, that are so unfamiiar to her. She pushes them down and buries them in the golden sand until the wind sweeps them free another day.
But she has gone, because a boy with amethsyt eyes had asked her too; and she has been trapped inside the screams of the pained and the breaths of the dying, and eyes that were blue, and then gold, and then black, following her everywhere. In the Mors, things have been more distant. She can convince herself that it was only the wind, howling over the dunes.
The nature of the desert is that it is always changing, and so too, does Solterra change.
The snake on the throne and his pet add their breaths to the ones suffocating her thoughts and the boy with the Amethyst eyes goes to the court. For awhile, Teiran stays. For awhile, she isn’t sure that she can go back. But it’s hard to ignore the urge of duty, the call of purpose, that almost seems to drift lazily across the Mors like breeze.
She goes. One step at a time, pushing down all of the things inside of her that have been leaking out of her like lifeblood. She goes, because the thing tethering her to the desert is gone, and she has only ever known how to be alone and now she isn’t quite sure what that means anymore. She goes because, through it all, she has always been and will always be one of Solterra’s soldiers.
Teiran isn’t expecting to see the Teryr, perched upon the wall of the court like some terrible divine death. But she also isn’t sure what she expected, because all Solterra knows is suffering and death. She wonders if it is all the court will ever know, no matter who sits on the throne, who walks the streets, who calls it home.
But when the beast launches itself down from the parapet, landing among the streets. Among her streets, the streets of the people she is meant to protect, something in the soldier shifts. It’s like a cog, or a wheel, fitting back into place after being jammed for too long. She draws her twin, serpentine daggers from their sheaths at her sides. The sounds of the wind whistling against their obsidian blades seals all of the cracks in her.
Something drops behind her sage eyes, some curtain, drawing them dark and blank. There is only a tunnel, from her to the Teryr, whose call is still echoing down every empty and dark alley in the court. There is a wild thing in her streets, calling for blood, and she is a predator again on the hunt.
Somewhere lurks the memory of a young girl with scared green eyes and protruding ribs, but she is lost among the thoughts of protect, guard, fight.
