ooc; Sorenson and Bethanie are Kellyn's dead uncle and aunt on Brennen's side. Bethanie died after fighting in Elite's Valley crap and is understandably bitter; Sorenson is here because in my head they would have found each other in the afterlife and also he's the calm to Beth's angry. <3
‘I don’t know if I’m angry,’ Gail says and Kellyn gives her a long, unfathomable look. She doesn’t presume to know the woman’s feelings, but she has been angry before and over so much less, and a part of the strawberry girl doesn’t believe that the woman could be aught but angry, in some part of her being.
Time shifts, blurs, the langoliers destroying the world around them, but finally - finally - Gail steps forward and they move into the wormhole. Kellyn wants to shiver in relief, but there is something wrong. They don’t drop into a new place like before, and time doesn’t snap to the correct orientation. It is constantly shifting around her, not quite out of control but so close to it that she feels nauseous, and wonders if she’s the only one. Is her it sensitivity to time that makes her sick, or do they all feel it? A quick glance reveals that they are seven – only six travelers, and Gail. Three more lost to this mission. Though she did not know them, she feels a renewed need to succeed. It would be wrong, somehow, if they died for naught. ’He’s struggling,’ Gail says and the pink girl flicks the mare a glance but does not respond. There is nothing Kellyn can do to help – she reached for time, wanting to try, but she couldn’t touch it. All of the manipulation must be done by Him – from the outside.
The steps seem interminable, endless, until she stumbles onto sand and a breath of cool, salty air. The strawberry girl scrambles to her feet, relief coursing through her as she spins to see Gail step out of the wormhole, and then there is nothing again, a moment of disorientation, and they are on a new beach. It looks like their beach, but something is wrong. The girl shivers, staring blankly at Gail as she offers apologies, before her gaze drifts to those who have wandered towards their group, and then back to the sickening vision of her companions aging alongside her. Gail tells them to ask the dead for help, and Kellyn heeds her as if it is another order from Carnage, stepping forward, but then she stops.
They are all unfamiliar. Not a single familiar face. Her family, though scattered to the corners of Beqanna, lives on beyond this strange underworld. As the other participants seek out friends and family, the red girl stands frozen, unsure of whom to seek. It is not in her nature to speak to strangers, and so in this important task she is nearly useless.
“Kellyn,” the voice makes her spin around, instinctively reaching to freeze time as she has trained herself to do when threatened; but there is nothing to grab. Time here is not her time, and she cannot change it. With a shiver, she lifts her eyes to find two sets of bright blue eyes, bright even in this strange place, watching her from white-splashed faces. She doesn’t know them, but lets her eyes drift across their bodies. She’s bright chestnut, the color Kellyn imagines she might be with the white roaning, and he’s bay, both of them splashed liberally with white. She doesn’t know them, but yet…something in the back of her mind says there’s something about them that she should recognize. “Who are you?” she asks finally into the silence, noticing that he’s smiling, gently, but there is something harder in the mare’s eyes.
“I’m Sorenson.” the boy says, stepping forward a step from his place beside the other. He’s taller, but just a bit, though clearly he is young. A part of he realizes that he must have died at this age – barely out of foalhood. Her age. “This is Bethanie. I’m your uncle, Beth’s my sister. Your aunt.” She’s older than both of them, body and face mature, and a brace of shocking white scars across her belly and back. It’s that Kellyn finally recognizes – the stark white scars against the bay of her hide match Brennen’s, and quick glance up to their slightly dished profiles cements it in her mind. She knew, of course, that she has many aunts and uncles on her father’s side – some dead and some alive – but she had met few of them. “I…uh…how did you get here? Can you get us out?” The strawberry girl’s eyes flick to the forms of her companions scattered across the beach, growing older with each passing minute. Somehow, she knows that too much time here might leave them a face worse than denizens of this place, because the spirits aren’t aging in the same way the travelers are.
“I died because of your mother.” This time, it’s her that speaks. Beth. Kellyn’s eyes fly back to the pair, startled at the cold and the venom in Beth’s voice. ”Beth,” the boy says quietly, but she raises her voice to keep speaking. “Because of Him. My son grew up parentless, and my family mourned. But Elite got Cagney, got you, got her perfect little family.” Kellyn is speechless, shocked, struck by the anger but also because it must be true that the dead can watch the living (because while Kellyn is not the world’s best kept secret, neither she nor her close family had flaunted her existence either). Before she can formulate a reply, Sorenson turns to give his sister a look, accompanied by a reproachful murmur: “Beth, she’s not her mother.”
Kellyn wonders if now is a very, very bad time to say she’d ended up on this godforsaken beach out of a morbid curiosity to meet her grandfather, the Him Bethanie spoke of. Her Aunt’s blue eyes are hard like the ice of the Tundra, but Sorenson still has the gently sad look he had when the conversation began. “My father saved my mother because he loved her, and because he loved me. Ending her life would not have brought back the people her actions killed.” Despite everything, that was one thing Cagney had always stressed to her. The deaths in the Valley might have occurred on Elite’s orders, but they did not occur at her hooves. “Cagney was willing to see Elite die, because she told him to let it happen. But ending her life would have ended mine, and that he could not bear.” There is quiet between them, and in total contradiction to her years of life Kellyn feels the need to fill the silence. “I wasn’t really raised by Elite, you know. She was comatose, and then she left us. And I wasn’t really raised by my father, either. He loves me, but he’s not a great parent. And my older brother – well…Vader couldn’t live with us for long. Elite was not kind to him, and my father’s love wasn’t enough to overcome that. Mine, either.” She wonders if Vader is somewhere on this beach – she has not seen him for so long, and that is an ache now in her heart. They are silent still, so she continues, a quiet smile gracing her face. “Brennen raised me. My grandfather…your father…is that not enough to tell you I am not my mother?”
He smiles at her, his blue eyes gentle, but he looks at Bethanie and Kellyn knows that he will not do anything without her approval. The bond between the siblings is clearly stronger than what he feels for her – and she does not blame him. The mare looks steadily back at her, a flicker of something in her eyes but not yet yielding. “Elite was an innocent once, too, with a family that loved her. But yet she grew into a monster, and her actions got people killed. How do we know you are not the same?” But Kellyn notes with hope that her Aunt no longer sounds quite convinced of her position. “You look like her, you know. She never looked evil, either.” The last is almost a whisper, as if she wants to be convinved. “I don’t know how to convince you I’m not like her. But I’m not the only one here.” She murmurs quietly, turning to look towards the others , knowing those bright blue eyes will follow hers.
Towards little Nihlus, and littler Wrynn. Towards young Ramiel, and Trekk. Towards Rhy – another niece of theirs, though on the other side of the family. Sorenson sighs, leaning into his sister, and Beth spends a long time looking at them before she turns back to Kellyn, and if the coldness is gone, her gaze is still grave. “Some have gone back. There are ways, for the powerful and the strong. There’s a path, if you are brave enough to take it. But not everyone makes it.” Bethanie’s quiet voice is not an apology for the things she’s said, and a part of Kellyn wants to stay – to make her understand that she can be good, like they are. Like Brennen. But she’s not sure that would be the entire truth because she’s never been quite like them. “Show me.” she says quietly. “You won’t regret it, I promise. I can be different than my mother.” For a long moment, the strawberry girl and the chestnut mare stare at each other, each lost in their own thoughts, but at last Bethanie nods, making Sorenson smile widely at the both of them.
They lead her away from the water, to where the ground rises, and there is a familiar dark opening. She was born in a cave, after all, and she practically lived in one for many years. Caves are home territory. Somehow, this one both calls and repels her, and she stands shivering at the brink and looks back at them, and back at the beach behind them. “After I go, can you help them? If their people won’t?” All of her companions are intently talking to spirits, but still she worries about them. They have lost journeyers already, and she hopes they are safe at home, but she doesn’t know. Sorenson smiles, touching her shoulder with a cold nose. “Of course, darling.” He’s a kind soul, and Kellyn wonders what happened to him. When she gets home, perhaps Brennen will know. “You are not your mother’s daughter…yet. Take care that you stay that way.” Is her Aunt’s final warning. Not quite a declaration of love, but Kellyn will take what she can get. She steps into the cave.