[P] even his falling was only a pretext for being

[Elena]

elena

I've hidden memories in boxes inside my head before. Sometimes it's the only way to deal with things.

There is nothing remarkable about the dawn that finds her, nothing new about a sky enameled blue and pink, about a golden sun that sits heavy and impatient just below the horizon. The trees are as they have always been, tall, strong, looming, a hundred sentinels gathered. Maybe it is their spindled, reaching branches pushed aloft to hold the pieces of sky and cloud together, or the tangle of roots below that wrap like bony fingers around the heart of this quiet place. She appreciates the morning enough.

She is tired today. The dreams have left her raw, left her shaking, because there is a leaden familiarity to them. She dreams of Hyaline. Keep dreaming of Hyaline. Sometimes Lilli is with her, sometimes she is not. Sometimes it is Kensa beside her, but more often than not she is just alone. It all ends the same, tumbling down from that mountain side. Down. Down. Down. She never stood a chance really, when you think about it. Elena was always destined for tragedy. There is beauty in the way she crashes and burns. A dazzling spectacle of light and sparks. Some how Elena manages to make even a downfall look spectacular.

There is a moment where her breath catches between her teeth, but the moment passes quickly. She cannot explain this feeling that sits behind her eyes like a headache, that something is happening. Elena still hunts for that quiet life she and Lilli talked about so long ago, and, in some ways, Novus and Terrastella have been able to offer her a little piece of it. Elena has a wonderful life, a wonderful position, a beautiful brilliant daughter, the best of friends, and flowers erupting around her with spring air and sunshine. But she hunts for the noise in the quiet around every corner. She will never get what she so desires.

‘Elena!’ someone she recognizes from the Hospital approaches her. They need say nothing else and the golden girl is following after him. Whatever it is, it is urgent. Hooves pound the terrain below her feet as she races off, desperate to reach whoever it is who needs her help. “Update me,” she says as she enters, still moving quickly through the building. She catches only the words she needs. ‘Fever. Infection. Kelpie. Wounds.’ None of this frightens her, nothing sends her reeling, none of this sends her into a panic. She is Elena, the calm and steady healer the moment she enters this building. Even when blue eyes fall along those oh so familiar horns, the stripes, the coloring, everything about him. Even when it is so unmistakably Torix who sits here before her, she does not lose her composure. She cannot afford to. (“One thing that separates healers from the rest Elena, is our composure, our ability to never panic nor grow scared. Just as a solider cannot afford to lose himself on the battlefield, so too must you keep yourself before the illness, the injuries—the death.” It is Lovelace’s voice that guides her through, that keeps her from breaking down and weeping right there. She sends a silent thank you to the obsidian unicorn, but this is all she has time to offer her—later she will go the peak and light a candle for her.)

“You will live,” she says with a voice like honey. It rests behind her ribcage like a promise and it is a promise even if she does not explicitly say the words. She can feel him, letting go, that sense of giving up, the emotions are read by the empath and she grits her teeth against them. She tries again, to push her own emotions into him, the fight, the resiliency. He would not be so easily won over this time, not if he does not let her in, but if she can even push an ounce of fight into his blood, she thinks it could help. “Fight, Torix,” her voice is delicate but commanding. “Draw out the infection,” she orders to the other medics. “That is our first area of concentration. And keep him awake,” she says. She begins to work around the wounds. “This is going to hurt,” she says to him, her voice sounds cold, but she fears the warmth here, that if she lets too much in, it will take over her. Only when the blood runs clean does she begin to sew the skin together. “Torix,” she says, orders. “Tell me something, talk to me.” She says, trying to keep the pleading from her voice. “It’s Elena. Talk to me.”

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