[P] my cherries and wine.

[Elena]

Some girls are full of heartache and poetry

Peace and conquering go hand in hand, someone once told her with a sense of finality, as if she would have nothing to say to it. Elena turned with something like fire in her eyes. She thinks it just as an excuse to conquer, to take what does not belong to you and hold it captive under your power. For Elena grew up in lands that were not conquered, but given, given to each new heart who found their way there. And she thinks if where she grew up was not peace, then she does not know what peace could truly be.

But then again, maybe the best kind of conquerer is not one who rides in with swords and shields, but with love and compassion.

He tasted like the wild, but with something else.

An edginess—as if the wild was trapped in his chest, as if he denied it.

“You can rest your head, you know,” she says to him as she works, noticing the strain in his neck. She smirks at his response, but those blue eyes do not move from the work she performs. Elena tries not to think of how much blood he lost, of what could have happened if she had not appeared. “Good,” she notes, before adding. “Because you shouldn’t have any.” And there is a note of laughter in her voice, but there is honesty too. Elena was experienced, she was skilled. She wishes her new position came just as easily as being a healer did.

He scoffs, she scoffs back, but the smile in her eyes says something otherwise. He was being ridiculous, but the golden mare has been known to fall victim to such behavior as well. She watches as he walks to the pond, following him closely behind, chattering on about his care until—

What is her name?

There becomes a small gasp trapped in her chest.

It is not the first time she has been asked this, but then why does she feel so surprised by his question? This gives her pause for a moment before watching him closely, and for a moment it is not this man standing beside her, bloodied and healing, but another, with bonfire ash in his hair and the reflection of embers in his eyes. ‘A dance for a name then,’ he had said to her. “My name is not so easily earned,” she says to him, because it is gained through countered steps, rolling shoulders, and shifting hips.

It escapes her then, like the whoosh of a loosed arrow, just as water tilts down his chin. His wings raise, he is the perfect patient, in theory, if just watching them now. She goes to his side, close, if only because there is a certain intimacy that comes with healing. “I will not leave you,” Elena promises him. “You can walk yourself and I will merely supervise,” she offers sternly. She moves from the water before him, a chill runs down her spine as the wind brushes against her. Night was coming.

He comes to stand next to her, there is still a sternness as bright as ice in her blue eyes. It is the question of her daughter, over everything else, that softens her once more. She laughs, it’s small in the given circumstance. “Young enough to still need someone to walk home with her, but old enough to believe she does not.” She says and shakes her head before looking back at his wounds she had patched, she does not touch his cuts, but traces the outlines of it. “I will send a bird from the hospital to my home, informing my ward to attend to her.” Nic. Nic the most wonderful of finds she has ever found. Elliana was accustomed to spending time with Nic, and the girl adored her just as much as Elena did.

“Now you know of my daughter, perhaps you should tell me of why your blood was spilled, did someone do this to you?”

those are the kind of girls who try to save wolves

instead of running from them