the moon is a target range; Tarnished

[Daeryssa]

The sunset rains like a bullet hole; trees only seem for hanging.

I think it has been…just about forever.  Since I could breathe, since I could move, since I remembered what it was to feel at home in this body I live in.  It doesn’t feel like mine, somehow.  So colorful and vibrant and unscarred somehow when all I feel is scarred.  Gendry erased the marks left behind on my skin.  He put me back together, and he healed the damage to my body.  But the monster broke something in me so many years ago, something that had already been so terribly fragile.

And I have never quite felt whole since then.

I try not to let the broken parts show too much.  They’re all living their lives, moving on and trying to be happy.  Building futures, building families, recovering from all the tragedies that struck our family.  Hallows has a sweet little family of his own, his lady and their lovely daughter.  Gendry’s always had his Arrya.  Xero may not be with someone, but she’s…she’s happy.  She always has been, even during the hard times.  I used to envy her resilience.  But I’m glad at least one of us isn’t broken.

Dröm has vanished off the face of the earth, and frankly I think it’s for the best.  He…I love him because he’s family.  But he’s…there’s something wrong with him.  A darkness in his eyes, in the way he looks through everyone but Drow.  In the way he looks at Drow like he is something to be possessed.  And Drow…he hurts enough without Dröm’s help.  Without him around, Drow has been healing.  He seems almost peaceful sometimes, our volatile volcano slowly going dormant.  The fire inside him easing, dying down to embers.  

Tarnished is...well, I haven’t seen a lot of him.  I think he has old hurts to work through still, and it keeps him away from me.  Then again, there has always been a bittersweet, aching kind of distance between the two of us.  Momma Luna showed me beauty and joy and happiness, taught me about the wonders this world can hold long before I entered it.  She taught Nish about the nightmares.  About the dangers, and the way the choices we make can ruin the lives of those we love.  I think…I think we should have learned from each other, should have balanced each other.  Instead, there was always this subtle dissonance that kept us apart.  I bet we’d understand each other better now.  Maybe I would hurt him less, now that…

Now that the wonder is so far out of reach.

I haven’t been alone all this time.  That’s something none of them would so much as think to allow.  No, I see most of them from time to time, quick visits, short talks, fleeting smiles that sometimes even feel natural on my face.  And I hate that I don’t know how to do this anymore, that I don’t know how to be…who I was.  The bright eyed, carefree, adventurous little girl they knew.  I wish I could, if only because it feels like letting them down every time I hide, every time I hit that point where I just can’t be around anyone anymore and I pull away.  I wish I knew how to tell them it’s nothing they did, nothing they didn’t do, nothing they could have done, that it’s just too much.  That too long without the quiet makes me shake, makes my chest tight and my jaw clench and my breath start to fight me.  I was always something of a hermit, spending more time by myself exploring the world than I did with everyone else.  But after the monster…

So I try.  When I can, I try to put on the smile, try to be unscarred and unbroken long enough to soothe the worst of their fears, long enough to buy a little more time before someone decides it’s time to intervene and try to fix me.  I don’t think anyone can fix me.  Gendry fixed my body, erasing every patchwork scar I tried so hard to hold onto until I realized it would have hurt him too much.  I let him restore my outsides to shiny and new when all I wanted was to be what the monster had made me.  Scarred and tattered and roughly pieced together.  It’s so much work to be shiny and new, but it hurts them less.  And some days hurting them less is all that I have.

I still explore.  I think they’d worry more if I didn’t.  Spending days by myself, wandering up a mountainside knowing there is no one for miles and miles, no mask to wear, no half-hearted smile to plaster across my face, knowing I can shed all the shiny and new and just be unashamedly broken for a little while, knowing no one will hurt a little inside just looking at me.  And knowing I’m far from any monsters the crowded places hide so cleverly in plain sight.  God, the meadow is too hard.  Too big, too much, too many people, I can’t watch that many strangers all at once, can’t read that many people, can’t tell who’s safe and who might whirl around and tear me to pieces.  And even when it’s only a few, I’ve been wrong so many times.  I’ve been so very, very wrong, and I’ve hurt too many people I love by being too naïve, too blind, too starry-eyed to see when someone is danger and ruin and heartache just waiting to fall on us all.

Alone is easier.

Alone is safer.

I stand at the precipice of a mountain I’ve never climbed before, muscles shaking from the exertion as I look down on the world from far away.  So quiet, so still, and it’s in these moments where I find a moment of peace.  Where the skittering under my skin eases, where the breath in my lungs is sweet even if I’m panting and my coat is stained steel blue from sweat.  There is no past, there is no future, there is only this moment, this view, this breath, this single solitary beat of my pounding heart.  For just this moment, I fit in my skin and in the world.  It never lasts long, but for right now, I can breathe.

The moon is a target range, and rivers seem only for drowning

Daeryssa

of the restless heart

Reference

[Tarnished]

We were young and wild and free,

fightin' in a love we couldn't leave.

It’s been years.

I’ve kept in touch with them, of course. Mostly Gendry. My big brother is always there when one of us decides to rip ourselves apart and considering how much that happens, he’s an almost constant presence in all our lives. Hallows, ah, Hallows. I started to see less and less of him after Wex was born—he moved his family north, because seclusion felt safer. Is safer. He’d always been the wisest and it was wise to stay out of Beqanna. Xero had left with Mom, they’d gone somewhere where even time couldn’t reach her—and as much as I miss them, I cannot find it in me to call them back to this awful place. Drom’s gone and I cannot say I’m sorry to have seen him go. Nocturnal knew there was a darkness in him, had wished she’d culled that one—but she could never bring herself to kill one of her own children.

One of their children.

And so she’d let him live.

Even at Drow’s expense.

Drow, he’s always been in and out. Always hurting. Always. There’s darkness of a different kind in him, it’s self-destructive, and as much as Gendry tried to fix him I knew he would always be broken; there was nothing that could fill the hole Nocturnal had left when she died. When she left him.

I think that’s what makes me hate her the most.

If any of them had inherited her telepathy, I would’ve known years ago; they still mourn her death and might have despised me for what I thought. But it’s the truth. I swear, it’s the truth. After all, I know her better than anyone. I relive her life every night in my sleep, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Quark was the only light in her life and she hated it. Nocturnal hated that she loved Quark and their children so much that someone could use it to hurt her. If only because someone would hurt them to hurt her; she had made them targets, she realized, and that hatred turned inward when Gendry was taken from her. She never forgave herself and all of her decisions beyond that point were selfish.

Selfish and stupid.

Nocturnal had tried to distance herself from Quark after that, tried and failed, hence my many brothers and sisters; she tried not to love Quark, tried to separate herself, she had only wanted to keep them safe—keep herself safe, because she simply couldn’t handle losing anyone else. That selfishness, that weakness, that aversion to emotional pain had brought the entire family to ruin and it disgusts me. I, however, am not so cruel as to tell them that they’re all still mourning the death of a coward and that she isn’t worth the suffering they’ve endured.

I have never liked flying, but it’s quiet and clear and I don’t have to worry about running into someone looking for idle conversation; I swoop low over the trees, my hooves skimming the tips of leaves dried up from the sun and knocking them loose; it happens then, without me realizing it, happens when I least expect it and I don’t even notice until a chorus of screams erupt from The Meadow below.

My body has changed, and while it does that a lot, this isn’t a form I’ve taken before; I’m at least sixty feet long and an unknown margin high, and like my hellhound form, I have spikes growing out of my back—my tail forks, because that’s what it’s used to doing. There’s three horns that grow out the length of my snout and shiny hard black scales that shimmer red have replaced my roan coat. My fangs are longer, sharper—there’s fire in my throat, smoke in my lungs, but it doesn’t hurt. I can just smell it, taste it. I can taste the air with my tongue.

I’m a dragon.

I twist through the air in a way I’ve never done before, it just feels so easy. So… right, but wrong at the same time because I have seen this dragon’s reflection. She saw it. I’m a replica of my Mother in her younger years, though far larger.

Gritting my teeth in frustration, I struggle to change shape as quickly as I can because this isn’t happening. I refuse. I sort through what I know, what I remember, until I’m a little crow that quickly darts out of sight. I head towards the mountains, because seclusion is safer; I head towards the mountains and towards a place I know I won’t be bothered because there’s never anyone there. Except there is.

I spot her from above, sweating and panting and looking exactly the same as I’d seen her years ago. Rather than shoot straight towards her, as I would have done as a child, I ease into a landing and slowly change back into a winged horse before I ever touch the ground. It’s funny, I suppose, how much more comfortable I am with dragon wings on this body than I am being an actual dragon; Vanquish had them and while we were never close, I wanted to be. I respect the old King. “Daeryssa?” I ask, glancing around. “What’re you doing up here?”

tarnished

vanquish x nocturnal

Even on the way down, even on the way down.

[Daeryssa]

The sunset rains like a bullet hole; trees only seem for hanging.

It’s so quiet this high up, so peaceful that I can’t help but let it sink into my bones.  Even if only for a little while.  Silence so profound it makes me understand Hallows’ penchant for meditation, it seeps into my soul and soothes the scars Gendry couldn’t erase.  The relief never lasts, but it helps.  A little.  And even a little is more than I—no.  Not more than I deserve.  I can say that much now, at least.  And it only took a decade, too.  I didn’t act with malice.  It wasn’t my intention to hurt anyone.  I was naïve, a little girl playing grown up and making choices without the wisdom to back them up.  So no.  I don’t deserve to hurt.  I didn’t deserve to be attacked.  No matter what I believed at the time.

The whole world is quiet, the silence unbroken even as a stray crow wings high overhead.  I’ve always liked crows.  Clever, sassy little things with endless dark eyes and an affinity for shiny things, what’s not to like?  Seeing this one sends a smile spreading across my face, and I close my eyes, breathing in the cool, clean air.

When I open my eyes again, the crow has already begun to shift.  Startled, my head jerks up of its own accord, nostrils flaring wide to catch the scent of the stranger, ears flicking nervously.  But the shifter takes his time, giving me a chance to adjust, and before he has finished settling into horse shape I recognize him.  The racing of my heart starts to ease as he comes in for a landing on dragon wings, and I give my brother my best welcoming smile.  Which, admittedly, is a little shaky.  Especially since I can’t quite manage to drag my eyes off the ground long enough to meet his.

That is, until he says my name. I'd forgotten, it's been so long. He's the only one who ever uses my full name, the name our mothers gave me despite my declaration that I was Dare and no one else. It never really fit me before, never really felt like mine. But...but I do not feel daring anymore. It's kind of nice, to hear the nickname softened by the extra syllables until it doesn't mean a little girl who as good as died years ago. "Hello, Ni--" I meet his eyes then, searching their familiar golden depths. We have never called him Tarnished. None of the children of the Sun have ever used his full name. It was cruel of Momma Luna to place such a heavy burden on him, naming him for her pain and suffering, using her newborn son as a weapon. But. But none of us have ever asked him what he wants. And I think if any of our siblings were to ask me now, I would prefer Daeryssa. "What...what do you prefer to be called these days, brother-mine?"

I hate the distance between us, but I don't quite know how to close it. When he was very small, I used to groom him sometimes, give his withers a good scratch. I was good at finding all the itchy places once upon a time, and it was the kind of thing that helped build the love between family. Older siblings did the same to me, complete with cuddles and playful nudges and the spiking of forelocks all of us seemed to love. But it's been so long, and those were baby games, and now? Maybe if I were a little less out of practice, I could put on a smile, step closer, hug him even. Instead I shrug a little awkwardly, the smile on my face a little nervous despite my best efforts.

"It's quiet up here. Safe. Peaceful, you know? I, um...don't get a lot of that around other people. And I like exploring. I'm not exactly great at crowds, but I know the land. And..." And the monsters are easier to recognize out here. I can still see her eyes, cold and glittering in the afternoon sunlight as she tore into me. Still feel the agony of tearing flesh and breaking bones, and the apathetic acceptance that yes, I deserve this fate. I shudder, pushing away the memory. "What about you? What are you doing way out here?"

The moon is a target range, and rivers seem only for drowning

Daeryssa

of the restless heart

Reference