[open] everybody knows we've got unfinished business [Meeting/New Hyaline]

[Chryseis]

you were a vision in the morning
when the light came through,
i know i've only felt religion
when i've lied with you
and i'm still waking every morning
but it's not with you

.

It has been years since she last came to Hyaline.

For years, she has ran when anything felt too heavy. She ran to shed the weight of whatever sat on her shoulders, but something she had began to learn was that no matter how far she ran, the weight followed her. No matter how far she ran, it didn’t change that Rhaegor was gone. It didn’t change that her father hated her. It didn’t change that anyone she had considered family had slowly disappeared. The girl that had once been surrounded by more love than she knew what do with was now suddenly completely, utterly alone.

When the first blaze of fire was breathed across Tephra, she had for once had a completely logical reason to run.

There was a part of her that thinks she should have gone back. There was a part of her that felt like she was abandoning something she had been trying so hard to build; a new life with Rhaegor from everywhere that they had known, a new life that was just for them. But he was gone, and with every passing day the ache in her chest grew bigger. Maybe he wasn’t coming back at all.

She walks, the smell of smoke still clinging to the raven-colored locks of her mane, and she almost doesn’t even realize the familiar path that she follows until she crests a mountain range. She sucks in a sharp breath, her dark brown eyes scanning across a sight that she had seen hundreds of times, but has long since forgotten about. The air smelled different here, and yet it stirred nostalgic memories all the same. She had missed this place, more than she had allowed herself to feel.

By the time she descends from the mountains and onto more level ground, there is a small gathering of horses, their attention focused on the one that was speaking. She draws closer, her gold-blazed face tilting in concentration as she tries to place the face, and that voice. Kensa. It comes to her once she is alongside the other two stallions – one that she does not even realize is Rhaegor’s brother – and instead of feeling the jealousy that she had felt that last time she was here, she finds herself offering the mare an appreciative smile. Unlike everyone else, Kensa had not abandoned Hyaline.

She waits until she has finished, and allows the others to speak as they wish, and when she offers her own voice she speaks to Kensa directly, “I’d like to come back, if that’s okay.” She pauses, her gaze dropping towards the ground for a moment, before lifting back to the gold-flecked woman and continuing, “I never should have left. Hyaline is where I was born, and you should not have been left to try and keep it alive by yourself.” And then, as was her nature, she glances to the other two stallions, offering them a half-smile as she introduces herself as an afterthought, “I’m Chryseis, by the way.”

chryseis