[P] Winters end

[Elena]

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

She remembers a time when she was not so burdened with history. When she had existed without a world on her back, an atlas with shaking knees.

She remembers running, having to get away, to run, and just keep running, to never stop, even when her lungs felt like they were burning and all she wanted to do was give up. But she couldn’t, she couldn't stop running.

Because the second she would, when she would land in Murmuring Rivers, not only was Frostbane going to catch up with her, but so would the truth, and it would stare her in the face. And Elena, fiery, bold, brazen Elena, would be forced to face it. She couldn't accept the hand that fate had dealt her, the one thing, couldn't accept the one she was dreading. She refused.

And so she had ran, young hooves on the snowy terrain of winter. She had ran, heart beating in her ears, and just when she felt like she was going to keep running, keep running until she flew, she fell.

Crashed and burned.

Marcelo and Ori found her as the wave crashed over her, a puddle of tears, sobbing and suffocating in her sorrow, pulling at her in every direction, until she thought she was going to choke to death on the agony she felt. And there came a startling realization that maybe she didn't want to breathe again, but the air still flooded her lungs as she screamed and wailed that echoed through the winter landscape like some nightmarish dream.

She wants ore than anything for her father to find her, to tickle her with his nose and tell her he had simply been hiding and how much he loves. But never again. Never again would he say how he loves her, kiss her scraped knees, or tuck her in at night. It was all done, it was over, in the blink of an eye.

The first man she had ever known was dead.

She had stopped running.

She had sobbed.

“Dad.”

The slender golden mare with pale tendrils is thankful for spring. She had never been a girl of winter, finding the snow to be bland and the the cold to be spiteful. So often she would be found shivering, her golden coat shaking. Elena was a summer child, a tulip breaking through the snowy surface, desperate for a spring sun.

Glacier eyes look to the front of her, moving towards the hospital. So focused is she that she almost misses the woman who is breathing heavily walking by carrying her bundles of medicine and herbs. It takes her just a moment before she rushes after the girl inside the hospital. “Hi,” she says quickly, feet creaking on wooden floors. “Are you okay, you don't sound well,” she says, icy blue eyes scanning the planes of the girl’s body. “Do you need some help?” Elena, ever the helpful one. She blinks those pretty eyes of hers, letting them fall under dark, long lashes. Elena was still gaining her footing in this new land, and she would continue to reach her hand out to anyone who needed it. She has not lost her compassion yet, it remains resolute, as strong as the waterfall she grew up next to. “I’m Elena.”



* 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.

@Luvena