[P] errant

[Nicnevin]

YOU ARE LIKE A CLOUD SEEN BETWEEN BRANCHES
in your eyes the laughter and strangeness of a sky that is not yours.

One out of approximately a million discoveries I’ve made since I arrived in Novus: I am fascinated by the ocean.

I know a bit more about it, now, which only makes me all the more certain that I know nothing about it at all. I have learned that the white, grain-stuff that borders the ocean is called sand and that the border itself is called a beach, and I have discovered that the ocean is made up of water, albeit a particularly salty variety of water, one that isn’t at all good to drink or bathe in. That doesn’t prevent other creatures from living within it, I assume, but I am not at all sure of the type. I assume that the ocean has fish. If there are fish in other sources of water, no matter how bizarre saltwater is, it probably has fish, or something fish-like. Maybe something frog-like, too, or turtle-like, or snake-like. There are only so many creatures that could possibly be built to live in the water, or so I tell myself.

I keep thinking that I know something, and then being proven completely wrong. But: I’m not so sure that it’s a bad thing. It is far too exciting to injure my pride.

I am still not particularly good at flying in beach winds, so, when I catch sight of the cliffs in the distance, I drop down to the ground, landing unsteadily on mossy rocks and tufty grasses. The land is so uneven here, so unstable, so slippery and wet; it is enchanting to look at, particularly from above, but I wonder if I won’t break a leg if I don’t get better at landing on it. I can already smell the ocean. I know that the smell of it is salt, at least in part, but it doesn’t smell like salt, and I’ve spent time in my fair share of kitchens, over the years; salt doesn’t smell so wild. I take a deep breath of it, and, unlike the first time, I appreciate the way it burns my lungs a bit on the way down.

It’s much more tolerable without a mouthful of sea water, anyways.

I pace back and forth along the cliff’s-edge, until I find one of the stairways down to the beach. It is slick with saltwater and rain; water clings to the cliffside, pooling in mossy crevices and dribbling from the dark edges of stones. I make my descent slowly – carefully, for the most part. Once I’m down to the last thirty steps or so, I cannot curb my enthusiasm, and I break into bounds, clearing several steps at a time.

I am nearly at the ground when I lose my balance. The world spins, and I nearly come crashing down with it, but I stretch out my wings at the very last minute and manage to avoid falling face-down in the sand. That certainly wouldn’t be pleasant. It looks gritty, and it would sting my eyes, and I’m sure that I would never be able to get it out of my mane – which is already looking wildly unkempt and salt-strung from the ocean winds. I stumble the last few steps awkwardly, and I come to an unsteady halt on the beach.

I am not entirely sure why I was so eager to do that. Knight-voice-in-my-head tells me that I could have broken a bone or two, but I try to ignore it.

For some reason, the water is not as close to the shore as it was when I was here last. Perhaps it is just because I’m at a different place on the shoreline, but the water seems very far away – miles out, even. It certainly wasn’t so far away last time.

Still. I am most curious about the water, so I start across the beach; at first, I am dissuaded slightly by my narrowly-avoided tumble only moments prior, but I soon break into a run. It feels awkward. I’m barely used to walking on sand, much less running on it, and it skids and kicks under my hooves in a way that feels very wrong. The wind feels amazing, however, as it riddles and streams through my feathers and my mane, and I can’t help but grin – and laugh, very softly, then louder, then exuberantly. I have been many things, but it is important to enjoy being a creature that can feel happy enough for laughter.

Something catches my eye before I can reach the water. Something…protrudes from the sand.

I come to a slow halt several feet away from it, cocking my head at the thing sticking out of the sand. It is pale, and it reminds me of a stone, but it spirals like the horns I’ve seen on some unicorns. I trot closer. It seems to be buried, very slightly, in the sand, and I frown at it, dipping my head to get a better look.

I am still growing accustomed to the telekinetic magic of this world; in my homeland, it was much easier to do. I lower my nose until it is very nearly touching the sand, focusing my stare on the strange, spiraled stone-thing, and I think at it. I think at it very, very hard, and I try to imagine it suspended in the air above the sand, hovering just a few inches up.

The stone-thing wriggles free of the sand, and I manage to hold it up – only to discover, with some mixture of shock and horror that sends me stumbling back an inch or two, that the stone possesses legs. Lots of them. Stubby little legs, which are currently flailing helplessly. I try to put it down gently, nearly drop it in the process, and barely succeed on my second try.

The little creature wobbles a bit. I see two, stalk-like black eyes slowly protrude from the shell; they remind me, somehow, of a snail. (I wonder if this is a sea-snail…but snails don’t have legs, or eyes like this.) I stare at it, and it stares back, utterly perplexed…

And it snaps one of its legs at me, which is not exactly a leg – it has a grip like a vice. I stumble back, sending up a cloud of sand in my wake, and glower at it, very slightly.

I’m not sure that it can understand me – when I was a firefly, I couldn’t understand anything but the bright blips and scents and sounds of my own kind – but I try to look appropriately apologetic. “I apologize. I did not intend to disturb you.”

It snaps its leg at me again.

---

@Elena || hermit crab: 1 nic: 0 | "nocturne," cesare pavese

"Speech!" 

@

[Elena]

Elena

let us live like flowers
drenched in sunlight

E

lena wouldn’t be here if the war was going well.” She had once heard Aletta say to Brynn in the confines of Murmuring Rivers. She had been sitting with Lilli, listening while the adults talked, when they should have been in bed with their respective family. Lilli with her family with an absentee father, and Elena living with her cousins, not a parent in sight.

She had known that her arrival into Murmuring Rivers had caused a disturbance. Valerio had been gone for a year, Ruth had been gone for a year, everyone had been gone for a year, everyone had been getting settled. The ‘new normal’ was becoming established. And then Elena arrived, Marcelo brought her into the ancient land and asked Aletta to speak in private while Elena was fussed over by Ori. She had known they were talking about her, talking about how she came here from Windskeep, about her dead parents. She saw questions on all of their faces, asking ‘how was the war going?’ ‘Would they be back soon?’ ‘Was anyone—?” They didn't need to ask the rest. And then the culmination of it all, of what it really meant for her to be there. “Elena wouldn’t be here if the war was going well.”

No, she wouldn't be.

She has been in Novus nearly a year. It is a long time, not the longest she has lived in a place, but long enough, long enough to form friendships, long enough to form a career of healing those in not just one court, but two, long enough to fall in love more than once, long enough to have her heart broken. And long enough that there is a child, her child, on its way. So not the longest she has lived in a place, no, but long enough—long enough.

For once, Elena has found more promise in isolation than in conversation. The emotions of everyone, the emotions of herself, it has started to become too much, and so she decides to spend the day near her seaside cottage, wandering over the cliffs. She knows it would be easier in a crowd, to drown herself out, but she cant do it. She cannot bring herself to do it. This pain she feels, it is the only thing that is keeping her from going numb. And something, something, anything, any ache, any agony, any grief, it is better than the nothing she has felt before. Still—

It was difficult to not imagine the what ifs.

It was impossible to not wonder about the possibilities, of the things that they could have been, would have been. If everything would have aligned. It was impossible to not think about these things, the almosts, so soft and so impossible as they clung to them, seeping into their very flesh. It was almost beautiful. It was almost perfect. They could have been almost forever—almost constellations.

The stars had almost been theirs to hold.

She knows she still has a heart. It’s in pieces, little bits of shredded and tattered paper that lies in a cavity of her chest. But it’s there, beating feebly. It squeezes painfully in her chest, but she does her best to think around it. Does her best to breathe around it. She takes the steps down the beach, silver blue eyes carefully watching her feet as she places them on the wet rocks. She is careful, graceful despite her pregnancy. Elena the Round, could perhaps be her name if she were a knight. She laughs at the thought. The palomino is a honey-gold drop of sunlight—beautiful and vibrant.

Like the girl, Elena too is fascinated by the ocean. It could be destiny, that she was always intended to feel this way towards it. After all, her parents had gone into the ocean and fallen in love there. They had gone into the ocean, under the sun and they had no idea they would create their own sunshine. They loved the ocean so much, that when Elena lost her own eyes, they gave her new eyes with the ocean reflected in them. And so Elena feels it was fate that she should love it so.

She will always love her mountains, whether it be Paraiso or Hyaline. She will always love her fields of flowers, whether it be Windskeep’s tulips or Murmuring Rivers’ lavender. And she will always love her trees, whether it be the pines of Beyond or the giants of Taiga. But Elena has only felt her heart rock and sway placidly in her chest when she watches the light, sunlight, starlight, skip across the water into the edge of forever, the ocean its own immortal being.

She feels her before she sees her. She feels that sudden surprise, that shock, even if she is not sure what it is towards. Elena turns blue eyes, looking around her, thinking she was alone, the sudden flutter of emotions was unexpected and if not a little unwelcome. But she finds the girl sitting and staring at the little creature before her. And Elena whose golden skin was once bristling suddenly offers a tentative smile. “That is his way of saying, ‘get back,” she says with a laugh, coming closer to the girl. There is no recognition, and she believes she would have remembered someone who looks like her, different, and so young too. “I would listen to him if I were you,” she says, blue eyes falling down to the tiny sand creature. She thinks of the time Liam got a crab stuck on his nose, his blue eyes had been so wide, and there had been only a moment of silence before he screamed. It may have been the first time she had seen Brielle laugh. She wonders if he still has the scar from it. But she remembers in the same breath that she would probably never see Liam again.

“Not too many find this little area, are you lost?” Elena asks, still smiling, that unwelcoming thought turns into something warmer in her eyes, and summer skies are found in autumn. “What’s your name?”

Someone asked her if this world was worth saving. At the time, she didn't know, didn't know if it was, for all the pain and agony it harvests, a glutton for despair. But now, as she knows what rests inside her, eager to appear, Elena think that maybe it is.

code by rallidae
picture by cannon
@Nicnevin

[Nicnevin]

YOU ARE LIKE A CLOUD SEEN BETWEEN BRANCHES
in your eyes the laughter and strangeness of a sky that is not yours.

The woman who emerges from my peripheral vision is like a shard of sunlight in the pre-dawn; soft gold, mostly, and accented with gentle cream. She’s lovely, and most of all in her eyes, which are a brilliant blue, a blue that reminds me profoundly of the sky – though I only just know how to make the comparison.

I am barely looking at her – and yet, even before I turn my head (sending, of course, a cascade of distracting forelock tumbling into my eyes; I quickly sweep it out of the way, tucking it behind one horn almost self-consciously), I know that she is beautiful. She is a simple beauty, but beautiful regardless, and there is something to the way she carries herself that makes me altogether too aware of how I fit in this body, how my legs are still far more than a fraction too long for my frame, how my hair is a mess of unkempt and fiery tangles, how I hold myself like I am still a traveler in this body, rather than its owner and sole inhabitant. I feel clumsy, compared to her (but I am beginning to think that I am clumsy in general), and oh-so young.

I watch her, eyes saucer-wide, and, when she smiles – I think that it does not quite reach her eyes. It is almost disappointing.

That is his way of saying, ‘get back,’ she says, and laughs. It is the sound of her laughter that makes me aware that the situation is probably funny, if you happen to know what you are looking at; I am still somewhat jarred by discovering that the rock moves, so, when I smile to her in kind, my smile is a restless thing, still nervous at the edges. I would listen to him if I were you. Her eyes drift down to the little thing, which is still snapping its claw-hands at me unhappily, and I follow her stare.

When her words sink in on me, they do it abruptly. There is a momentary pause between what she says and my recognition of what she says – it is all very much to deal with at once. The sea and the sky and the smell of salt and sand, the little creature that looks like a stone with limbs and large black eyes, the woman who looks like sunlight, and then me, standing wayward on the shoreline, not quite myself and not at all a thing of this world. It’s a little bit too much, probably, but I would be as good as admitting defeat if I were to admit it to myself.

“Ah-“ I say, a nervous (and apologetic, though I am sure that the little creature is not aware of it, and though I suspect it would not understand it even if it were aware) quiver in my voice. I take several wide steps back, towards the pale woman, and then tilt my head at her, wide-eyed. “Do you…think that this is far enough?” I have been enough small and helpless creatures to have little desire to trouble them, much as I struggle to empathize with them properly as I am now. It is too easy to apply my own morals and reasonings and understandings to something that I know (from experience) does not think or feel that way at all. It should be a kindness, but I have come to realize that it is far more of a cruelty, and nearly a selfish one. I look back, then, to the little thing, unable to rein in my curiosity. “What is he?” I am sure that the question will expose my inexperience; but, then, I suspect that my stance has already exposed it regardless.

Not too many find this little area, are you lost? There is something softer in her voice, now – something that wasn’t there before, and a gleam in the cerulean blue of her eyes. It reminds me of a warm bath, and it somehow settles my (unnecessarily troubled) nerves. (I really did feel awful about upsetting the poor creature.) What’s your name? I blink.

“Lost?” I repeat, but the question in my voice is mostly directed at myself. Am I lost? “In a way, I suppose. I didn’t have anywhere that I intended to go - and somehow I found myself here.” I think that I probably should; there is a quiet urgency that lingers in the back of my mind, like some snare full of some rotting thing, that reminds me of the Heir, and of my people, and of the responsibility that has been placed on my (all-too-young; all-too-old) shoulders. I am scared, if I am being honest, maybe even terrified. I am scared, and I am desperate not to think about it. “I am Nicnevin – a knight of the Wynding Gold.” My knees bend on instinct, and I dip into a graceful bow, wings halfway outstretched at my sides. “Might I know your name, my lady?” That might be-

a bit much.

The courtesies are probably useless. They roll of my tongue practiced, practiced - like I’ve said them a hundred thousand times, and I probably have. I do not stop to think that they are likely excessive (and maybe even troublesome) until they are already out of my mouth. This land is not the Wynding Gold, and I am only just beginning to learn the distinction between what is polite and what is troublesome in “Novus.”

(I wonder, too, about the other cultures within it. I have only the barest grasp of Terrastella, and there are three other nations that inhabit this place; I can hardly imagine how they coexist. I suppose that I will find out eventually.)

For now – the world is wide and blinding-bright, and I have no room for useless worries.

---

@Elena || <3 | "nocturne," cesare pavese

"Speech!" 

@

[Elena]

Elena

let us live like flowers
drenched in sunlight

E

xhaustion trails her these days. The break-up, the loss, the healing, the pregnancy that now stirs in her belly—it all collides in her chest, seeping into her bones. She does her best to hide it from those she sees, meets, visits with, from Azrael. She sleeps fitfully. She rises tired. Her dreams try to cling to her body, trying to drag her back down. It hurts, them holding her with their vice like grip, it hurts. ‘Leave me alone,’ she tries to tell them, but they never listen. They wait there through the day as Elena tries to forget, wait for her until invading her once more the moment her head lays down to rest.

And his face is back in her vision, the deep hollows, the long lines of strong bone, an expression of hunger she should have know was dangerous. She has it memorized so perfectly that she was certain she could draw it in the stars. It always comes back despite how she pushes it away, it stays there like an unwanted bedfellow until the morning comes and she can find enough activity to distract herself from the shadow of him that follows her. She knows he waits though, just like the rest of her dreams. You cannot so easily escape a shadow.

He had been masterful the way he had taken her apart, piece by piece. Her stomach had flipped, her nerves had been on fire, but she had tried so hard not to admit that weakness to him. He is there even now in her mind, nightmares to haunt her in the day. She realizes this beach reminds her so much of the one he had pulled her upon when she had nearly drowned. She feels a flutter in her belly at the memory, the betrayal of uninvited butterflies batting holes in her stomach. Elena tries to fight it, patching up those holes. She fights it for this strange girl and the relief she has brought her on this day beside the ocean. A reprieve from the monotony of heartbreak.

Her tired smile widens, catches crookedly in one corner of her mouth, she does it because the girl is nervous and Elena so foolishly thinks a smile can soothe her, can bring that nervousness into a steady state of calm. The girl smiles back and Elena cannot help but think it is brilliant in her own way as it cuts a path across her face.

The golden girl can feel her growing more unsure, it burrows into her bones, and causes Elena to fidget. It was far too easy to let an emotion like that into herself in the current state she was in. She takes a few steps back and Elena meets her the rest of the way to close the large distance between them, nodding her head encouragingly. “Good, that is perfect,” she says, blinking blue eyes. Elena then directs her eyes back to the creature. “See? When you stay far enough away, you can watch him go about his day. Far more interesting than him holding his pinchers at you.” She laughs and actually smiles as she watches the little creature move about the sand, seemingly satisfied to be out of immediate danger.

‘It’s a crab,” Elena informs the girl. She doesn't think it strange, after all, Elena had not grown up beside the ocean, she just assumes the girl must have experienced the same. “It has a shell on top, and then those claws to help protect itself,” she explains patiently. It is only when they meet eyes again that Elena can feel the girl settle, in turn, settle her own nerves.

Her explanation is so pleasantly simple that Elena laughs once more, just a note or two of her soprano melody. “Well I am glad to have found you today,” she offers her. “A knight?” She says in polite surprise. “Not every day you meet a knight anymore,” she says and it makes her think of home. “I am Elena, a medic,” she offers in return, she bows as well, there was something comforting about such a traditional greeting, it would have made her godfather proud. “I had some cousins who were knights, you must be very brave,” she comments, thinks for one so young.

“Have you just arrived? Do you need anything?” Elena asks, empathetic as always. “I can take you where you need to go,” she says, and perhaps it is a selfish reason, she just doesn't think she can stand to be alone right now. She looks to Nicnevin like she is a little light in her cloudy life, like she is a little firefly in the dark.

code by rallidae
picture by cannon
@Nicnevin

[Nicnevin]

YOU ARE LIKE A CLOUD SEEN BETWEEN BRANCHES
in your eyes the laughter and strangeness of a sky that is not yours.

She assures me that my treatment of this strange little thing has become far more appropriate. I lower my head to the sand again, my nose nearly touching the beach. I keep my distance – but it is hard to see him properly from above. “I do,” I say, when she asks me if I see. “He’s cute, like this.” In a certain, strange way, at least. He’s not like anything I’ve ever seen; there is something charming in that simple fact in and of itself.

When she speaks again, I lift my head – slow, so I don’t startle the little creature.

It’s a crab, she says, and I repeat the word to myself inside of my head. It has a shell on top, and then those claws to help protect itself. A shell! I’ve seen them on beetles before, and a few other insects, but they were nothing like this – the shell on the crab looks as though it is practically made of stone. (The claws are a bit easier to wrap my head around, though they are still unlike any claws that I’ve ever seen.)

“I see…” I say, though I’m not quite sure that I do. It is so hard to believe that there are so many other things outside of the Gold, so many things that I have gone so many lifetimes without ever seeing. “A crab,” I repeat, slowly, rolling the word over in my mouth. Crab. Crab. Craaaab. I hope that it sounds right, but it is so hard to be sure.

At my introduction, she laughs, and her voice is soft and gentle against my ears – I still feel a bit embarrassed, but I decide that I like the sound of it. She says that she is glad to have met me; I can’t help but agree. “I’m glad to have found you, too,” I say, genuinely.

Elena then remarks on the rarity of knights in this land, and I make a mental note of it; I can’t imagine a land without knights. At home, we are fundamental, but here, knights aren’t. How strange. I wonder what the outsiders have instead. I dip my head. “Yes – though, I suppose I’m not much of a knight here, without my order.” A lone knight is not much of a knight, romantic though the notion may be; and, in such an unfamiliar place, I don’t feel worthy of the title at all. (I have been so foolish already.)

Elena. Her name is Elena. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Elena.” She mentions, then, her cousins, who are knights like I am; but I thought she mentioned that this land did not have many knights. (Perhaps her cousins are some of the few that exist here, or perhaps she is a foreigner, like I am.) At any rate, I am curious. My head tilts. “Cousins?”

She speaks of bravery, and a smile twists my lips; it feels strangely wry against my mouth. “I’ve been called reckless more often than I have been brave, I think…but thank you.” Dying so many times will do that to you – each time I live, I think that I value the life itself less. The first time, it was frightening; I didn’t know what to expect. (To tell the truth – a truth that I usually avoid -, I didn’t even know if I believed I’d come back after I died, like the priestesses told me. It seems silly, now, but I wasn’t faithful, at first.

My oldest and dearest friend knew, I think. Sometimes I wonder if he felt the same way.)

Elena asks me, then, how long I’ve been here, and if I need anything, or if I know where to go. “I’ve been here a week, so I haven’t much gotten my bearings.” I consider, for a moment, telling her everything, but then I think better of it. I think it is just that she seems like the kind of person you want to entrust everything to; all of your deepest, darkest secrets. She’s kind. Genuinely kind. Still, I don’t know how to explain myself, or anything about my situation. I know how outsiders tend to view rebirth, and the priestesses, and I don’t know anything about the heir. “I’m…looking for someone, but I don’t even know where to start searching. The people who sent me here didn’t have any idea where they are; I don’t even know anything about them.” I pause, considering. I feel like it is only just dawning on me that I have been thrown into this wild, wonderful, wretched world completely blind. I know nothing; nothing at all. I am barely less ignorant than a newborn soul.

“I don’t know anything about this land, yet, either. I’ve just been wandering – I don’t suppose you have any advice?”

---

@Elena || <3 | "nocturne," cesare pavese

"Speech!" 

@

[Elena]

Elena Daray

let us live like flowers
drenched in sunlight

T

here is a part of Elena that has always feared that she has not left a mark anywhere in this world. That she moves in and out of people’s lives like a needle through fabric. Each of the lands Elena has been in has shaped her, has molded her, even if she hadn't stayed. But she has to wonder, how many of those lands remember, how many places are there still that are marker by her presence. How many eyes can still recall the blonde of her hair or the curve of her smile? How many would recognize her now if they saw her, here, where Terrastella is embedding itself in her? Would Valerio look past her, believing her to be just another palomino in another home? Would Aletta ask for her name, not thinking it could possibly be Elena? Would Alvaro turn his back to her, thinking he would not smile for a stranger? So maybe, at the end of it all, Elena is not terrified of leaving her mark on the world, because scars fade, paint chips, and  flowers die, but leaving her mark on the people of each world she has been apart of.

There is a piece of her, here with this mare, that is here for her own selfish regard, that she is using her. She is a distraction, and she is grateful for it. As with all distractions nowadays, she pours herself into it wholeheartedly, abandoning the pain, the memories, in the back of her mind.

A genuine smile radiates across her face like sunshine and she lowers her head with the girl until they are both watching the crab with interest. They rest then, at nearly eye level, with Elena explaining to the girl, she tries to keep herself from sound brittle, the delicate girl with sunshine buried in her skin. “If you come to the beach often you will see that it is full of them.” And just as she says this, another, smaller crab appears and scurries off as quickly as they had come.

“You can be a knight wherever you wish, maybe you can start an order here,” she offers. “The pleasure is mine, I always welcome knights in my company,” she says with a smile. Reckless is a word she is familiar with. She had been called as much by her family, so often rushing headfirst into things, standing up to snow princes and throwing herself in front of those she protects, whether they be friends or strangers.

Elena’s heart is an ocean. An ever changing thing. It swells and grows like high tide, it pulls out with the low, as if afraid of being touched. But with this girl, the ocean comes flowing in, swirling around their ankles as she smiles. “It took me some time too, never fear,” she says, and inside her heart she laughs. She tells a knight to never fear when she was probably far braver than herself. “Let me help you find them,” she says taking a step forwards. “In the mean time—do you need a place to stay?”

code by rallidae
picture by cannon
@Nicnevin

[Nicnevin]

YOU ARE LIKE A CLOUD SEEN BETWEEN BRANCHES
in your eyes the laughter and strangeness of a sky that is not yours.

Elena, just in time for a second to appear, tells me that I will find that the beach is full of crabs, if I return in the future. I stare at the second creature eagerly, noting all the ways that it differs in shape and size from the other, and I wonder, for a moment, about what other strange, wonderful, and possibly snippy creatures I might encounter on my future journeys to the beach.

(I have to enjoy them while I last, after all. I can’t possibly stay in this world forever.)

“I’ll have to come back soon, then,” I say eagerly, looking at the second crab, as the both of them scuttle away from view. The ocean washes up around my hooves, and around hers, and it threatens to pull the little things out; I didn’t even realize that it had gotten closer until I felt the chill of the water and the gentle press of foam on my skin. I wonder why. I don’t ask yet, because I don’t want to interrupt the flow of our conversation with more probably-foolish questions, but I do wonder about it.

I didn’t realize that the ocean moved - I suppose it explains the wet sand that’s far up the shore. I’m not sure if it’s wonderful or utterly perplexing or both.

She assures me that I can be a knight wherever I wish, and she suggests starting an order here. I don’t actually have a response to that, but I feel my eyes light up; the idea of starting an order in this apparently-knightless world seems wonderful. (Not to mention that it might help me search, I’ve missed my old position as the Green Knight.) She says that she always welcomes knights in her company, and I grin, and make a mental note to ask her about her knightly relatives later. I wonder if outsider knights are much different from us, or if we are much the same.

When I admit to my confusion, Elena assures me that she, too, took a while to gather her bearings in this world, and then, to my shock, she asks me to let her help me find the heir. Part of me is hesitant; part of me is suspicious. I know better than to tell outsiders much about us, after all. They always want more than we can give.

But she seems kind, and her kindness ultimately wins over my skepticism.

“Thank you,” I say, softly. I can barely comprehend just how nice everyone has been to me in this new world, so far; it isn’t what I expected of outsiders at all. (After all, before this, I’d only really encountered them on the battlefield, and being impaled on a sword or burned alive didn’t leave the best first impression. Their violence had always been unprovoked; I never understood it, and I don’t know if I ever will. The closest I came, I think, was after I lost my mother, the first person I ever lost. That was the first time I could put a word to it: desperation. Death makes people utterly desperate.) “I’d truly appreciate that – I have to find them. My people are relying on me.” I don’t know if she can help, but maybe, just maybe she can; at any rate, she certainly knows more about this world than I do. Elena asks me, then, if I need somewhere to stay, and I consider my answer briefly, hesitating. I don’t want to trouble her, and that sounds like an invitation – and it isn’t as though I can’t fend for myself, for now. I am used to spending my time outdoors, but I’m not used to the weather here, or the outdoors. Hesitantly, and quietly, I respond with a, “I…I believe that I do.”

---

@Elena || <3 | "nocturne," cesare pavese

"Speech!" 

@

[Elena]

Elena Daray

let us live like flowers
drenched in sunlight

H

er dark father had always told her that the changes that would come and go were needed for this earth, for the world, for all of the life that lived upon it to continue. That the dying of the leaves and the rain and snow of winter was necessary for this land of splendor to stay so beautiful and so healthy. That was why the snow melted and fell, the flowers bloomed and wilted, and the clouds floated breathlessly in and out. And, if there was anyone that Elena trusted the most, it was her mother and her father. Truthfully, she had trusted everyone in Windskeep, to keep her safe, to keep her entertained, and to love her unconditionally. She knew that there was not one soul in her wonderful paradise of home that would ever dream of hurting, betraying, or lying to her. Elena had been desperately convinced that her father was some kind of superhero and that he would always be there to protect her and to save the day. Faithfully watching over their beautiful home and his ever growing daughter. She was convinced that the shadows would never be able to reach her here, or her family. Here in this ancient world she'd only ever known and loved since the day of her birth, the light that shone from every heart within would keep out the darkness and the demons. Of course, she was still so young and naïve.

Elena had been hardly aware the shadows that so waited for the little drop of sunshine to find her way to them.
She too, had not been so aware of the shadows that plague so many others.

So is too apart of life to reincarnate? To live a life and another and another. Elena would be fascinated by this if she knew, she would ask for stories, ask for her memories. “Please do, I will come with you, and perhaps my child will too,” she says as she looks at her stomach with a glance of blue eyes. Elena feels the prickle of her girl’s emotions hit gently against her skin. Inspiration? Sorrow? It is mixed in the way she breathes and Elena resists the urge to pull her close, like her mother had once done for her. The empath wants to tell her she can do anything, be anything, but they are still strangers, and Elena’s optimism has been waning as of late. “I have found that when your people need you and you them, you are always brought back together.” Just as Elena had been brought back to Lilli in the memory world created by Lilli herself. Just as she had been pulled into the forest of Taiga from Novus when she had been fast asleep by Kagerus’s magic of turning dreams into a reality. Some how, Lilli and Elena would never stay apart forever.

Hesitation, the uncertainty, Elena reads her emotions like a book in Dusk’s library. “Well, I could use some help tending to the plants in my window, would you stay with me for at least the evening?” Elena asks, a loophole. “And really, I have been having some trouble managing my small cottage in my current, very pregnant state. I could use some help,” she says, looking up at her from beneath long, dark lashes. “I have an extra bedroom, if you would be willing to help—just till the baby is born,” she says and there is the hint in her voice that suggests Nic may stay as long as she likes. “Come, you must see the sunflowers I have growing,” she says and begins to walk away, gesturing for her to follow. “Sunflowers in late autumn,” she says with a a laugh as she walks, “do you actually believe it?”

code by rallidae
picture by cannon
@Nicnevin

[Nicnevin]

YOU ARE LIKE A CLOUD SEEN BETWEEN BRANCHES
in your eyes the laughter and strangeness of a sky that is not yours.

I’d thought that she might be with child, but I didn’t want to presume. It is nearly a relief when she says it aloud.

“Your child…” I repeat, feeling a prickling of something half-wistful. It’s almost strange to consider it or even think of it, but I’ve never had one, not in any of my lives; in one equine lifetime or another, I’ve fallen in love a few times (I think), but I’ve always loved something else more, particularly as the Green Knight. I was the sword and shield of my king, and nothing and no one would or could come before him or my duties to him; I never expected to die of old age, and I never expected to settle enough to have a family. In my second lifetime, I had similar ambitions, but I died young – and the wind and trees and swords and fireflies are hardly romantic creatures. Regardless, I’ve had a younger sister, and, in my time as the Green Knight, I mentored more than a few squires, and there was the heir. I always thought, privately, that it might be nice to have something more stable, but I’ve never considered giving up on knighthood, or my devotion to my homeland, or, perhaps above all, my devotion to the person who made me care, really care about my home and my knighthood to begin with. Every time I thought of love, I knew that there were things that I loved more.

I look at the swell of her stomach, and I think that it will be good to have the child around the house; perhaps I can teach them to hold a blade. “Perhaps I can be the one to tell them what a crab is,” I say, with a soft laugh.

When I admit, however reluctant, to how my people need me, she tries to soothe me; tells me I have found that when your people need you and you them, you are always brought back together. Her comment makes my smile turn wistful. I cannot fail – if I do, then, when the current king dies, my people will be doomed to perish. Without their magic, we cannot persist.

“Thank you,” I say, and though I appreciate her optimism, for a moment I can only think of all the people that I have known and loved and never seen again, in one life or another. I think of my dearest friends, and my sisters, and my mother, and my father. We might still meet again, but it has been some time, and we haven’t yet.

Perhaps I have seen them, in one form or another. A lark, or a fish in the river, or a blooming rose. I’d like to believe that I’ve crossed paths with them again, but that is another kind of melancholy, because I am no longer myself and neither are they.

She must have noticed my hesitation. She tells me that she could use help with her plants, and asks me to stay for the evening, at least; but she adds that caring for her home has been more difficult, in her current state. I have the distinct feeling that she is trying to coerce me, but I find myself wondering if she is going through this alone. Pregnancy is difficult. Regardless of how sincere her need is, I think that I could help her, even keep her safe if she needs it-

She adds that she has an extra bedroom, tells me to stay just until the child is born. (Her tone implies that I could stay longer.) I nod my concession, finally, and say, “I don't have too much experience with gardening, but I’ll do my best to learn.” For what it’s worth, I’ve been a plant before, so I think – hope – that I could pick up on it quickly. Besides – most of my learning has been by the blade. It would be good to acquire some new skills, for once. The priestesses insist on a sort of repetition.

Sunflowers, Elena says, as she starts to walk, I must see her sunflowers. I follow after her without really thinking about it.

Sunflowers in late autumn, she says, and she laughs. Do you believe it?

“Oh,” I say, a faint stumbling breath in my voice, “I’ve never seen a sunflower before-“ Never even heard of one, before she mentioned them, “-so I suppose I’ll believe it when I see it?” I smile broadly, give a half-wild laugh, and follow her home.

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@Elena || & fin <3 | "nocturne," cesare pavese

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