H
er dreams have been haunted lately. Of great stone castles, white ravens, and crowns made of thorns. She has not told her mother of these dream wanderings, has not seen her father within them after she had asked him to shut the door between his dream walking and her dream worlds. She was entirely alone in them. So she shares with the universe in the form of paint and canvas. A raven flies through a castle where flowers both wilt and grow, a crown of thorns sits upon a throne made of ancient woods, reaching up and and up beyond the ends of her canvas. If it touches the sky, it will never be known. The worlds Elli creates only extends so far. So much has change in her world, because unlike her canvas, she has learned this world extends beyond just Dusk Court and her mother's duties there, or Night Court and her father’s advising. She did not blink when her mother told her her cousin from a distant land would be staying with them and Nic. She did not cry when it has been so long since she has heard from Aeneas. And she has not shuddered when she learned the Dawn crown would be passed from the flower kissed palms of Ipomoea into the young, little ones of Danae. What did this mean for the rest of them? Elli’s world still does not extend that far.
That is why, at the end of things, Danae has a crown atop her head, and Elli weaves flowers in her hair.
She is not made of things like the new Dawn Queen is, but she feels a stirring in her chest all the same. An urge to wander, to grow with the world, watch life and death. She feels her pulse thrum in her chest, in her throat. And that is why she is in the gardens, Jack resting on her shoulders quietly. Laughter, reaches her and it gives Elliana wings on her feet as she skips through the moonlight towards it.
She knows it is not Danae.
It is not Isolt.
Made things don't laugh like that, only things born do.
“If I had a pointed crown such as yours, I would cover it with tulips, of blue, so to match the sky,” she says when she approaches the duo in a way so carefree that it belongs to youth and to youth alone. “And maybe for you,” she says turning to the woman. “Black roses, like a starless night, clear and crisp.”
..but nightmares are dreams too.
