estelle
Tell the wolves I'm home
S
he only turns from the bar when the liquor turns her body warm and numb. Her eyes close, ice-speckled lashes relishing the way she moves as it her joints are unhinged. Water she thinks, no longer ice. And it is true. Her heart feels melted, no longer scraping at her ribs with its every struggling beat. The alcohol has chased away the frost upon her until, at last, she feels free.
Estelle smiles as she walks. Her lips sharpening into a wicked, beautiful smirk as she drinks in the wealth of this Solterran family. She has seen the way they watch each other. With resentment and with love. She does not miss it. Still, in her day dreaming she can feel the way the Matron Tonnerre watched her, expecting more, always, always. But they were always laying their expectations upon the wrong Tonnerre. Estelle was never made to be the perfect Tonnerre they hoped for but Moira… Moira always held much more hope. She wanted, she worked, she perfected everything it meant to be a Tonnerre, even with her wings and her skin hot like fire. As Moira rose a phoenix, Estelle fell from favour.
But she would not have it any other way.
She reaches the next stall. ‘Truth or dare.’ It says, like a challenge. Estelle smiles. Would they ever believe her truths? Others had not. It was why she ended up here. Kicked out from her family, her name rendered to little more than dirt. So dirt she became when she left and wandered with Moira, pilgrims upon the road. Until the ice caught her, the ice that reached down beneath her breastbone and clutched her hot heart and froze it solid. She should have died, she knows. But instead she is here, watching another family crumble beneath the weight of their own expectations and turmoil.
“I will play.” She purrs, the alcohol roaring in her veins like an ice-dragon. I will play and my truths will at last be heard.
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