[P] gossamer [fall]

[Elena]

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

Her home, Paraiso had disappeared, into the mists. ‘Only those pure of heart will find it.’ Lovelace had told them. She wonders if her heart is still pure enough to be led back home. She has done good things, kind things, things her mother would shine upon proudly. She has healed those who needed it, she has helped a child in need, and she has risked her life to save strangers. But Elena too, has done things that darken her heart, that leave her feeling less than pure. She has buried kisses in the skin of a monster, who blossomed bruises on her skin in return. She has looked at someone with cold winter in her eyes, and like the sinner she is, she cast the first stone.

Elena is not so pure of heart, and she wonders if, even if she found it, if anyone would recognize her anymore.

She has dreamed that he stands there waiting for her, Ramiro, the obsidian unicorn, he stands on a cliff side calling her home. Elena is not even sure if she is remembering him properly anymore because she remembers him int he same way she remembers all those figures from her youth. The blurry outlines and the hazy shadowy faces of them. She can think about him and remember the vague colors of him, the idea of him really, but little else. Just that he stood like a God over everything and looked upon it all, knowing it was under his protection. She wonders what Ramiro would think of the little golden filly who has grown tarnished and dull with the test of time and the test of her virtues.

Elena watches the changing shades of Anandi’s eyes, enjoying the air of impish delight the woman always held. Maybe it was the sunflower girl’s love of danger that kept her so drawn, so in love with the want of Anandi’s friendship. Everything pushes her instincts away from her and Elena fights through it all to stand stubbornly at her side. “Or have we just always been the bolder sex?” She asks her, thinking of her mother, the way the sickness wracked her and the way she still stood so tall until it all but dragged her six feet below.

The golden girl listens carefully in regards to Anandi’s relationship to the dragon woman. The scars catch in the light and halt Elena’s breath in her lungs. “Oh, Anandi,” the empath says with a sigh. She is shocked by the calmness the exudes from Anandi’s skin and onto her own. “Anandi,” she starts to admit, never one to keep a guilted secret except for those she has deluded herself into believing. “I told her where to find you, if she did anything else, I am sorry, it’s my fault,” she admits to the girl, watching her with blue eyes for any sign of rage, of hatred, any of it she would deserve.

“No,” she says. It is not completely the truth. “Well, a cousin, but we were born in lands far from Beqanna, my home was called Windskeep,” she says brightly. It sounds like a secret on her tongue and tastes just as sweet. “What about your family?” She pries.

Elena smiles at her news, unaware of what secrets about herself sit there unwhispered, unshared, as seen as the wind. “And who is this?” She asks her. “Maybe she did,” she says with an impish grin. “We women are awfully good at weaving spells.”

If only she had such abilities over shadows and starlight.

so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me

@Anandi