[P] birds of a feather [quest]

[Elena]

Elena

let us live like flowers
drenched in sunlight

E

lena remembers being young, she remembers racing the river, she remembers tree forts, but she remembers how much of her childhood was taken away. Losing her parents, men loving her before they should have, being mercilessly chased, having her homes snatched away. She looks at Maeve and she thinks, yes, she remembers, but she doesn't want to remember all of it.

She wants to be like the ocean, she thinks.
Indifferent.

Her smile softens at the girl. There is a blue sky in Elena’s gaze. Maeve was young, with so much ahead of her, who knows where she would go, she had miles and miles stretched out before her. She hopes her childhood is long and beautiful and full of smiles.

Maeve takes off so fast, Elena barely has time to register how her own compassionate heart so carefully mirrors Elena’s own. How often had Elena ran into danger to protect someone she barely knew? She had nearly cast herself over a cliff side to save Litotes, and that was before he had a name, before she knew his relation to Kensa. She had stood before the Snow Prince, barely a yearling, and she had put herself between him and Lilli.

And now it is Maeve running into the potential danger, all for the life of another, a life she doesn't even know. If Elena would have time, she would have wrapped Maeve in a tight hug, but she would not have warned her still how much that compassion inside her heart is going to make her ache, make her cry, make her wish everything in the world was right and break when it wasn't. Some things you have to learn for yourself.  

They run and a frown creases Elena’s delicate, Spanish features. The worry rushes over Maeve and for the first time, Elena does something she hasn't done before. She looks to Maeve and tries her past to push calmness onto the girl, to soothe even a bit of the panic she feels. It rolls off Elena’s own golden skin and tries to latch itself onto Maeve.

The bird, when they see it, looks almost broken. She wants to shield Maeve away from it, but something tells Elena not to do it, to let her see, to let her know. “That’s okay,” she reassures Maeve. “It’s okay,” she says. The look Maeve gives nearly undoes her. She wants to pull her close, cradle her head and tell her everything was going to be alright. But now is not the time. “I still need you to help me, okay?” She says to the girl, tries once more to press that peace into Maeve’s heart, to help settle her breath and slow her heart. “First, calm down, a worried head clouds, and a clouded head cannot heal,” Elena says kindly, but there is a sternness in her words. “Maeve, look the bird over, what do you see? What do we need to fix?” Elena looks at the girl’s eyes with her own of blue.

Once she had been in Hyaline, young and fresh, and she had wanted nothing more than to be apart of something bigger than herself. She had gone to represent her territory in all she could, taking part in quests, educating herself, discussing politics with strangers, discussing politics with those who looked like they could kill her in one blow. She wanted to be apart of something bigger than herself. Hyaline had failed her.

But Terrastella, Maeve, the people of Novus, they have let Elena give herself to them again and again and again. Her pieces become wedged into something bigger.

code by rallidae
picture by cannon
@Maeve