[P] cathedral bell

[Elena]

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

They were so close to meeting, maybe on a shoreline, maybe in the swamp, but Elena thinks this forest is just as good, maybe better. “I would say so as well,” she offers with a gentleness that is so innately Elena, she forgets for a moment she is no longer in Beqanna and speaking to a familiar face. The forest is lovely. Elena thinks back to the forests she has seen. There had been one that was less than pleasant and one that had held something so precious to her. “My best friend lives in a forest, but are you ever fearful of their mystery?” She asks. Elena has questioned sometimes why she did not end up in Dawn, instead in Dusk, and she realizes now, for all the flowers in the world, she would not change her ocean or her open skies. “I don't spend too often in the swamp, aside from the hospital,” she says. Even then, Elena has been a traveling medic, preferring to stay near the city, near the sea. She visits people in their homes, taking temperatures of little ones, easing the burns of a cook for one of the wealthy families, mending a sprain of a solider on patrol.

Elena settles in her with her tea for her reading. There is an eagerness in her eyes, curiosity in her smile. She watches Corrdelia’s breathing, watches the cards, watches what fates could sprawl out before her, golden ears tipped forwards. Waiting.

Shuffle.

Shuffle.

Shuffle. Shuffle.

And then three cards are set on the table, blue eyes run over the corners of them before the first card is flipped over, revealing a school of fish, of Salmon. Elena is familiar with them, a school of salmon had once passed through Murmuring Rivers. Lilli, Lucien, and her had gathered around to watch them. There had been so many. “They must come here every year,” Malachi had said to him as he appeared behind them. Elena had turned to look at him with then eyes of amber. “Salmon always return home,” he said almost sadly. Elena wondered if they were the same, if they would return home too, if she would return home. But the thought is fleeting and she went back to watching he fish.

Always moving, sometimes changing course, but otherwise 'going with the flow’. Elena’s eyes flitter like blue butterflies to Corr’s face before back to the card. “Our true path?” She questions. Her true path? What could that be? Her heart tips in disappointment. How was she supposed to follow her true path if she didn't know what it was. Intuition had led her to Tunnel, it had led her away from home, it led her into darkness.

But Corr’s next words, perhaps do not offer reassurance, but a reasoning. You may be lost without clear goals or intentions. Elena had thought coming here, coming to Terrastella would provide her direction, but Elena thinks her compass may be broken. Or maybe, it never really worked in the first place.

And then the lion appears. A mountain lion, but a lion all the same. Ichiro the lion, they used to say, she heard the stories. Lions were a symbol of the House Legacy. She listens to Corr’s words, but she cannot stop staring at the lion’s face and thinking about all the brave ones who came before her. “How do I know who to trust?” She asks. She thinks of the faces she has met here, Anandi, Luvena, Marisol, Corr, Tenebrae, and Azrael. How does she know? And how does she keep secrets when her emotions so plainly write themselves on the golden angles of her face? She doesn't dwell though, because the final card is flipped.

“Empaths?” She asks more to herself than the cards. She thinks of Lilli and her echoes, but she isn't sure entirely how it relates to herself, Elena listens carefully. She has nothing to add to her words, just looks at Corr with a silent thank you. Elena has no idea just how entirely she would be connected to this card in the coming weeks. When the emotions of others became her own, changing her colors, to blue when she wants to be green, to orange when she wants to be yellow. To a wild rainbow when all she wants to be is colorless. “I don't know how to answer that,” she responds truthfully. Maybe Corrdelia did not expect a response, but Elena felt inclined to give her one anyways.

She lets a shard of laughter touch her lips. “Ive actually always been a little afraid of the dark.” Liar. Because even now she is thinking about settling in beside a boy of shadows. “But I've been beginning to enjoy to the stars.” A star. “Thank you, Corrdelia and,” she looks hesitantly at the crow. “Hasta.” She adds with a smile. “For everything.” It is sincere and it is kind. “This cant be the only time we meet. Maybe you can come to my home in Terrastella,” she asks before looking out the window. “I need to be going back, but please, come and visit.” She says with a quick touch to the girl’s cheek, before she turns to leave, carrying the animal spirits with her.

so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me

@Corrdelia