05-17-2020, 07:46 PM
The snow that falls so gently around them hints at something stronger growing, a winter squall that is sure to grow no easier if she insists on traveling north now, today, and every rip in her skin reminds her when she moves that she will not get far from these trees if she reverses her course and tries to go home, but she is slow to turn back to Pteron.
"I think if he cared to kill me, he'd have bothered to make sure I was dead before running off." Is it worse, that he didn't? Not for her, beneath the haze of anger and the pain that flushes her vision, she mostly finds a thread of surprise. But for Pteron, faced with the harm his father has caused? Something in her recoils from his assistance, reluctant to be a reminder of what he has lost, as if his help is solely offered out of some mislaid guilt. She pulls her muzzle back from where she'd left it, hovering near his withdrawn cheek, and unconsciously mirrors his action. There's sense it it, though, in staying. The wind is picking up and though it hasn't reached them yet at the base of the trees, the highest branches are beginning to sway, filled with urgent whispers.
I could stay.
"Maybe," she snorts, wobbles, catches herself, "Think they'll notice I'm gone?"
Will they notice that the Queen of Nerine is missing? That her scent grows stale on the cliffs and blows away in the wind like brittle ash from the Isle? Except, of course, from the place where her blood soaked into its soil. Ama will notice, she thinks. She will notice that Lilli is gone, that Neverwhere is gone, and only Eurwen remains. They may not realize she is still alive. Perhaps he's right, maybe they will all think she is dead and she can just go. But she can't, not forever. She had allowed herself to be bound to Nerine, but she would not allow herself to be torn away from it so easily. She is luckier in her enemies than others, Wolfbane had done nothing to betray her, he only shown himself to be what she had already known, and she knows, despite Pteron's warning that she would not survive it, that she would fight him just as readily again. But that's a battle for another day.
"Okay, Pteron. For a little while."
At least until the storm passes, she thinks. At least until she has slept off the exhaustion of fever and infection. And then she will return home again, north again, to whatever awaits her there.
"I think if he cared to kill me, he'd have bothered to make sure I was dead before running off." Is it worse, that he didn't? Not for her, beneath the haze of anger and the pain that flushes her vision, she mostly finds a thread of surprise. But for Pteron, faced with the harm his father has caused? Something in her recoils from his assistance, reluctant to be a reminder of what he has lost, as if his help is solely offered out of some mislaid guilt. She pulls her muzzle back from where she'd left it, hovering near his withdrawn cheek, and unconsciously mirrors his action. There's sense it it, though, in staying. The wind is picking up and though it hasn't reached them yet at the base of the trees, the highest branches are beginning to sway, filled with urgent whispers.
I could stay.
"Maybe," she snorts, wobbles, catches herself, "Think they'll notice I'm gone?"
Will they notice that the Queen of Nerine is missing? That her scent grows stale on the cliffs and blows away in the wind like brittle ash from the Isle? Except, of course, from the place where her blood soaked into its soil. Ama will notice, she thinks. She will notice that Lilli is gone, that Neverwhere is gone, and only Eurwen remains. They may not realize she is still alive. Perhaps he's right, maybe they will all think she is dead and she can just go. But she can't, not forever. She had allowed herself to be bound to Nerine, but she would not allow herself to be torn away from it so easily. She is luckier in her enemies than others, Wolfbane had done nothing to betray her, he only shown himself to be what she had already known, and she knows, despite Pteron's warning that she would not survive it, that she would fight him just as readily again. But that's a battle for another day.
"Okay, Pteron. For a little while."
At least until the storm passes, she thinks. At least until she has slept off the exhaustion of fever and infection. And then she will return home again, north again, to whatever awaits her there.
@[Pteron]
