[P] they say you love the rain

[Elena]

Some girls are full of heartache and poetry

Elena knows what it means when she fusses so softly at her, know those little mumbles and the way she nestles close to the gold of her skin. She had been up watching the night again, soaked in the patch of starlight that often pooled just outside of their cottage home. She breathes in deeply, sighs and shifts so slightly to press her lips to the soft place just behind her little, dark ear. At least she had not left this time, not followed the siren song of the night that so often called her to come and play in its shadows. There was nothing worse than waking up and finding her gone, to find only cold emptiness in the bed beside her, where her daughter had once been tucked against her. 

Her mouth wanders so slowly down her little neck, nuzzling her lips along the crest of her neck and just beneath her blonde mane. She moves over her withers, that crescent moon sigil of gold. To her side, the curve of her hip, and her soft little belly, grooming all the loose dirt and damp earth from her dark skin. It is so easy to fuss over her while she sleeps, to tug loose the tangles in her downy soft mane while the morning creeps closer and closer through the windows of their home. Morning is nearly here, and se wishes she could push it back a little further. She settles her head back over her daughter, to draw her close. 

Their cottage is modest, Elena has no necessity for extra, expensive things, Elliana has her own room, but she was perfectly content to sleep beside her mother while Nic slept soundly in her room. She preferred it, to sleep beside her every night, in her mother’s bed. Elena doesn't complain. 

She must have been drifting in and out of sleep herself while she waited for her to wake, because a small jolt of surprise races through her when Elliana starts to stir. She blinks, noticing how much of the morning had crept in and she wishes it would stay back away for another moment, but it progresses just as it always does. “I will be home later, baby,” she says, kisses her head and tip toes out of her home. 

When Elena had been small, she had not needed to imagine the places of story lands because she lived in the land where so many of her stories took place. And now she lives in another land that feels altogether mythical. Blue eyes blink away the sleep, the faltering edges of her lips smoothing out like a church dress on Sunday. Not a stitch out of place, not a wrinkle. She finds her in the court, it is still early, Elena wonders if she spent the night in Dusk, or traveled all through the night to get here. Either way, The Champion of Community greets her with a warm, spring morning smile. 

“You must be Ruth. I’m Elena.”

those are the kind of girls who try to save wolves

instead of running from them