[P] For I am a Sinner, Not a Saint

[Elena]

every day it feels like I’m holding back an ocean

“She was beautiful, you know. It was the first thing I noticed when I met her. Not her physical beauty (though she has plenty of that, mind you), but the beauty of that light that I could see dancing just behind her eyes. It was incredible, just to see how alive and full of energy this one little person could be. And, I’m embarrassed to admit … I fell in love right on the spot.” -Benjamin, Elena’s father.

She shines like the golden sunshine child she is. Her parents had named her in honor of the afternoon sun, bold and beautiful, burning. In turn, she lived up to her namesake. Elaina had not been like some of the typical legacy girls that surrounded her family, far from the quiet Melody and Starlett. The fillies that were raised by their mothers to be poised and proper, elegant and gentle in the presence of their elders or guests. The colts were taught to be calm and courteous. They were taught the formal and respectful ways to greet maidens and those of higher rank, how to carry a sense of level respect and uphold the family name, image, and honor. Elaina had been born eager to test her limits and find adventures, rather than learn her lessons about duty and grace. She loved the feeling of the wind whispering into her ears and running through her tendrils as she raced as wildly and freely as the eagle that soared high above the trees and mountains. The rush of finding something new, the thrill of not knowing where a trail might take her, creating an adrenaline infused concoction of excitement twisted with uncertainty. She was told this brazen personality came from her father, her godfather had always said he was a bit “against the grain”, while that grace in which she took on the world was entirely her mother’s. The golden girl has still not done what her family has. They either wait for her in their graves or they have found a life that is much more quiet and simple than the one she has chosen.

Elena does not know that there is another who has been traveling to the ocean often enough, maybe if she did she would not quite feel so alone as she does in Dusk. It is a new home, she so often reminds herself, but the thought hardly comforts her.

She arrives on the hospital, wanting to mix some herbs together that Lovelace had taught her. They were supposed to ease some the pain during childbirth. Of course, Elena has never seen a child being brought into this world, hr and Jay often left behind at the Cavern while Lovelace would tend to the mother. ‘When you’re a little older,’ she would say and smile before heading off to bring life into the light.

It is dark, Elena has stayed here longer than she intended and it would be a long way back to the capital. She begins to leave the hospital, slowly picking her way through the building when she hears a disturbance. She was not alone. Thoughts of Tunnel flash through her mind, he had found her, to pick at her skin and make her bones shudder. Or it was Aerwir to drag her back home. Her thoughts go to Lilli, but Elena knows in the same instant that Lilli was safe in Taiga, not here in Dusk. “Hello,” she calls out before she can stop herself. She knows so little about this land, who is to say it is not some sort of ghost haunting its halls. “Where are you?” She asks, not who you are, because that question has led Elena down far to many paths she has not been able to return from.



* e l e n a
in the dark I’ll pray for the return of the light
the sunflower daughter of benjamin and beylani
medic of dusk.

@Dalmatia