[AW] lose yourself

[Elena]

take this burden away from me
and bury it before it buries me

When she had been little, Elena had not understood how a mother could abandon her children. Her grandmother had told her how she had raised her Uncle Zamier and Aunt Shiri. They were the children of Ichiro the Fierce. He had found Zamier and Shiri shaking in the Nursery, alone, dreadfully alone. He had come to realize they were his children and he had taken them home. “How can a mommy leave her babies?” Elena had asked, a child so blessed with two parents who loved her, who longed to be with her when they weren't beside her for even a moment. Little Elena who had been too young to comprehend such a thing.

How can a mommy leave her baby?

She would ask this question again as her mother lay sick and dying. She was fading, Elena knew this as she would rest her head against her, sit beside that body so hot with fever that Elena knew it was not just the afternoon sun as her mother claimed. She was leaving them, all of them. She was leaving her.

How can a mommy leave her baby?

She feels restless. There is a heavy thrumming in her heart. She has grown wild here in Novus, like the sea that she has so chosen to live beside. It is seen in the daisies that roam in her flaxen man, and the way the ivory that creeps on her legs hold wet sand.

In the end though, he has hurt he and she would carry that in her heart because having him there, even in that way, as a constant reminder in her chest fragmented glass that so many have already broken (inhaled by her lungs) was better than not having him at all. He is trouble. He has shown her this time and time again, and still she yearns for him. He has danced with her, embraced her, shunned her, saved her, caught her, pushed her away. He has done so much to her for such a little amount of time, for such a summer.

Summer.
Oh what a summer it has been.

She does not know their story, but she thinks she can almost feel it. It is sadness that radiates in her chest when she comes near, but the golden girl of sunshine is unable to tell just who is feeling it. Elena finds them by the ocean. Oh always by the ocean. How often has she found one here since coming to Novus? It began with Anandi, a welcome, to Michael, a moment of questioning, to Tenebrae, a feeling of desire, to Azrael, a rush of adventure. It is only when she is closer she knows the one who causes the tightness in Elena’s stomach, who makes her eyes sting with the desire to cry. She wants to move away, to find happiness underneath the sun on this summer's day, but compassion burns in Elena’s veins like something fierce. She cannot leave a heart when she knows how much it weeps. She would not allow herself.

“She is right, beautiful stranger,” Elena says to the blue mare only speaking when she knows her voice will not falter with someone else’s sorrow that feels unfamiliarly familiar. “You are safe here,” she offers her moving closer to come and stand beside Juniper. “Steady your tears when you can,” she says, and though her voice sounds almost firm, there is the undeniable warmth that is so essential to Elena, a girl of sunshine and affection. She could not be cruel even if the world turned black. (For it had once, and Elena still had smiled. Elena still had loved.) “Welcome to Terrastella,” she says to the girl with a smile, offering what she can. “Now tell us, why do your tears fall?”

so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me

@Tiamat @Juniper thanks for letting me join in <3