[P] errant

[Elena]

Elena

let us live like flowers
drenched in sunlight

E

xhaustion trails her these days. The break-up, the loss, the healing, the pregnancy that now stirs in her belly—it all collides in her chest, seeping into her bones. She does her best to hide it from those she sees, meets, visits with, from Azrael. She sleeps fitfully. She rises tired. Her dreams try to cling to her body, trying to drag her back down. It hurts, them holding her with their vice like grip, it hurts. ‘Leave me alone,’ she tries to tell them, but they never listen. They wait there through the day as Elena tries to forget, wait for her until invading her once more the moment her head lays down to rest.

And his face is back in her vision, the deep hollows, the long lines of strong bone, an expression of hunger she should have know was dangerous. She has it memorized so perfectly that she was certain she could draw it in the stars. It always comes back despite how she pushes it away, it stays there like an unwanted bedfellow until the morning comes and she can find enough activity to distract herself from the shadow of him that follows her. She knows he waits though, just like the rest of her dreams. You cannot so easily escape a shadow.

He had been masterful the way he had taken her apart, piece by piece. Her stomach had flipped, her nerves had been on fire, but she had tried so hard not to admit that weakness to him. He is there even now in her mind, nightmares to haunt her in the day. She realizes this beach reminds her so much of the one he had pulled her upon when she had nearly drowned. She feels a flutter in her belly at the memory, the betrayal of uninvited butterflies batting holes in her stomach. Elena tries to fight it, patching up those holes. She fights it for this strange girl and the relief she has brought her on this day beside the ocean. A reprieve from the monotony of heartbreak.

Her tired smile widens, catches crookedly in one corner of her mouth, she does it because the girl is nervous and Elena so foolishly thinks a smile can soothe her, can bring that nervousness into a steady state of calm. The girl smiles back and Elena cannot help but think it is brilliant in her own way as it cuts a path across her face.

The golden girl can feel her growing more unsure, it burrows into her bones, and causes Elena to fidget. It was far too easy to let an emotion like that into herself in the current state she was in. She takes a few steps back and Elena meets her the rest of the way to close the large distance between them, nodding her head encouragingly. “Good, that is perfect,” she says, blinking blue eyes. Elena then directs her eyes back to the creature. “See? When you stay far enough away, you can watch him go about his day. Far more interesting than him holding his pinchers at you.” She laughs and actually smiles as she watches the little creature move about the sand, seemingly satisfied to be out of immediate danger.

‘It’s a crab,” Elena informs the girl. She doesn't think it strange, after all, Elena had not grown up beside the ocean, she just assumes the girl must have experienced the same. “It has a shell on top, and then those claws to help protect itself,” she explains patiently. It is only when they meet eyes again that Elena can feel the girl settle, in turn, settle her own nerves.

Her explanation is so pleasantly simple that Elena laughs once more, just a note or two of her soprano melody. “Well I am glad to have found you today,” she offers her. “A knight?” She says in polite surprise. “Not every day you meet a knight anymore,” she says and it makes her think of home. “I am Elena, a medic,” she offers in return, she bows as well, there was something comforting about such a traditional greeting, it would have made her godfather proud. “I had some cousins who were knights, you must be very brave,” she comments, thinks for one so young.

“Have you just arrived? Do you need anything?” Elena asks, empathetic as always. “I can take you where you need to go,” she says, and perhaps it is a selfish reason, she just doesn't think she can stand to be alone right now. She looks to Nicnevin like she is a little light in her cloudy life, like she is a little firefly in the dark.

code by rallidae
picture by cannon
@Nicnevin