thick skin / elastic heart

[Camelia]

I will run the streets and hostile lands, I will touch the rain with all I have
I will breathe the air, to scream it loud. My feet will never touch the ground.

Although Beqanna had dropped the majority of them in a safe place after the destruction, they did not go without injuries. Camelia’s happened to be when she’d been running. The deer had passed her grazing place (wide-eyed, white-tailed, driven by instinctual fear) and she’d looked up only to see the world folding in half. Tree-tops from the Chamber brushed the tree-tops from the Gates and her panic had shattered her warm soul like a hammer to glass. She’d run (just like the deer, just like woodland creatures, just like the entire kingdom) but she’d tripped. Her right shoulder had slammed into a rock, slicing a deep gash in her skin and forcing a deep ache into her bone.

She continues to limp now, as she explores Tephra. The free bleeding has at least stopped, but the scabbing is cracked and angry and her shoulder aches with every step she takes. Camelia’s nostrils flare when she breathes in a unique scent among the bitterness of the sulfur. It’s undeniable that the new land is beautiful (as Beqanna has wished it to be) but the smell of it is something the aging mare does not favor. She misses the sweet smell of the flowers in Heaven’s Gates, but she also misses everything about Heaven’s Gates.

The dunskin turns her direction of travel toward the smell, eyes seeking out the sight of a young mare. Camelia’s trademark sunny smile dances across her lips. When she is within earshot, she calls a greeting. “Hello! Welcome to Tephra.” She waits to say more until she’s closer. Coming to an uncomfortable stop (her mouth twists in a brief look of pain before it settles), Camelia glances over the mare. The most noticeable thing is the scabbed injury on her face. “Oh, honey, that looks painful. Come with me, we’ll wash it out in the salt.” That was the first thing she had done when the meeting was finished; limped toward the sea in the distance and allowed the salty water to wash out the dirt and bacteria from her bloody shoulder. It would be a good start with this girl.

“Can I help you? I’m Camelia.” She gives another warm, motherly smile and then waits for the young mare’s answer.

Camelia