Tangerine
In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep
He had played games with her. But they were games she didn't enjoy. He had carved her flesh and created monsters to torment her just to see what she would do. Then he had left her to fend for herself and find her own way home.
She felt betrayed.
After wandering Carnage's wasteland, she had found herself on the shores of Hyaline. She had scaled the mountains and given birth to Celest, in a summit meadow, as close to the stars as she could get. She was still His daughter, after all. And from what she had seen, the child was more of him than herself.
A cluster of women had come to support her for the birth ritual, they had given her strength and herbs when she needed them most. But as quickly as they had appeared, her protectors were gone. And she was alone again.
Well, not truly alone.
She had left the birthing site as quickly as her body would let her and headed for The River where she could heal in the shadows, nursing her wounds and strange child in solitude.
She couldn't face @[Amet] yet, and a return journey to Tephra was out of the question.
Amet's judgment of her interactions with Carnage had irked her. She had been secretly enraged that he would presume to question her judgment as boldly as he had. But he had been right. She had the scars to prove it.
"Did he hurt you?" He had asked, so sincerely, and she had to make an effort to keep her anger from surfacing. He didn't believe that she would ever willingly go to the bed of the dark god.
Her answer had been 'No' at the time. But now, it was quite a different story.
She needed to be alone. She has kept to the shadows these past few months to process her trauma without the necessary pleasantries and smiles of kingdom life. Her days had been spent tending to her daughter and avoiding others, traveling to the riverbank once a day to watcher her Celest play in the bubbling clean waters, and quiet stories whispered to the child in whatever shelter they could find. Her wounds are scaring over, they no longer drip and burn- she had always healed quickly.
Today, they linger here by the river - the teal and purple child and her gold and cream mother. Two that do not truly seem to fit together. Celest wades up to her ankles slashing and making waves with her muzzle while Tang lays in a patch of sunshine by the riverbank. A scent drifts to her then, she stands, and for the first time in months, she chooses to stand still instead of disappearing into the protection of the shadows.
please excuse the short history lesson