Whisper, whisper, whisper.
Her nights have never been silent. Whoever said the stars glisten without a sound in their obsidian sky has never lived in Elliana’s skin, has never experienced what she has experienced. Because they do not only whisper, they cry and shout and they laugh and shriek. She doesn't know what silent woods are when someone says they are alone, she knows only the way the trees call as the spirits come from them.
There is a wildness in her that drives her from her small cottage and her mother’s golden side.
It is trapped in her throat, wings that flutter and thrash in her veins, her breath caught and released from her lungs as she raises her young face forward. She is young, too young, to be leaving the safe confines of her home, where mother’s fierce eye keeps watch and her steady presence can be seen from all angles. But she does not care, cannot stay another day without stretching those legs that so itch to wander, and a hand that cries to paint .
She leaves early, early enough that she is not caught, although she knows that she will have to apologize later. Her mother will know instant that she is gone, she has taken her paint and her brushes. The air grows less salty and more fragrant as she moves away and away from the ocean. She breathes it in, her heart pounding with love of the familiar sight, but it is not enough to keep her; in truth, it would never be enough to hold her. She was made for more things that sea and sand.
She does not stop until she passes through the trees, the trees jutting upward and outward, the pine of it fascinating. Grinning, she presses her face into its branches, ignoring the thin scratches it imparted on her face. Breathing deep, she felt her pulse race in her veins. Today, she would have adventure.
She just knew it.
It feels like adventure when those spidery legs step out into the long grass of the field. Elliana doesn't look out of place here. She has the lovely lines in her face from her mother, those same eyes as her, large and expressive. She looks like her mother’s daughter.
But the moment that paint brush reaches out and touches against a large stone, she looks so entirely like her father that is could break his heart if he knew she even existed. If she knew he was her real father and not the man she calls papa underneath evening stars.
But, like many things, there is very little Elliana knows.
And so she paints.
