when you came in, the air went out, adna - Printable Version +- Beqanna (https://beqanna.com/forum) +-- Forum: Explore (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: The Common Lands (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=72) +---- Forum: River (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=82) +---- Thread: when you came in, the air went out, adna (/showthread.php?tid=24714) |
when you came in, the air went out, adna - Sabbath - 08-21-2019 SabbatH i'll let you play the role. i'll be your animal. It seemed so obvious, now, that she could have always come home to her mother’s soft embrace. Life has been easy in Tephra with Prayer growing stronger every day and her mother telling her all about the things she’s missed. Leliana leaves out the worst parts of the war but she grooms Sabbath’s hair and explains how her father’s curse is broken. The magician thinks maybe Sabbath’s could be lifted, as well. Each night, she sleeps in the bed of flowers her mother grows for her and she kisses her tiny daughter goodnight. Life is picturesque and nothing could harm their perfect reality that her parents have bought with their own blood and sweat. At least, she tells herself this. But the Tephran queen’s heart aches for all her children to come home and so the serpent girl sets out in search of her older sister. Some part of Sabbath knows that Vulgaris loves Adna best but he is careful to shower each of their growing brood with affection. Somehow, she doesn’t mind being the second favorite so long as he makes time for her still. When he isn’t chasing the twins or chiding Chronos for luring Larke on some wild adventure, he finds a moment to gather them all for bonding time. How much better it could be with the other viper girl there beside her. She chooses to search the river first because that is where they always come when their hearts are aching. Anything worth remembering has always happened here. Somewhere in these running waters, the other half of her horn is probably buried in the mud or still bobbing along. A part of her regrets it now but it made her pain into something real, something she could nurse and care for instead of a pincushion little heart. Her green doe eyes search the area for the other half of her soul and it doesn’t take long to pick her out of the crowd. While Adna is still dark, Sabbath has begun to lighten with little red dapples marking her skin. She hadn’t wanted to change color over time and a part of her envied her sister for not going through this but she’s outgrown the jealousy, for the most part. Perhaps they were too much alike in the beginning. Sabbath is quick to close the distance between them, slender legs carrying her right up to the other girl so she can bury her face in Adna’s strong shoulder. It feels so good to feel their scales meeting again, like a second homecoming just for them. She smells all the places her sister has been and she exhales them with a smile on her soft face. For now, the fire in her soul is content to be a quiet smoldering ember. “I’m sorry I stayed gone from you for so long. I should have gone looking for you, but I wanted to be alone,” she explains with her face still tucked in the black locks of Adna’s mane. “Things are really different this time. Father gave up everything for us. You should see how much his face has changed.” And she laughs, surprised at how easy it comes to her without some self-deprecating joke right before. “Are you.. Are you having a baby? I.. have a daughter now. I want you to meet her.” She grows shy, eager to boast of how beautiful Prayer is, but she contains herself for now. Part of Sabbath worries that perhaps that vile angel boy from Loess fathered this child after breaking her sister’s porcelain heart. The slumbering ember of her heart briefly flickers to life, suddenly awoken by that hunger for vengeance, but she pushes it down for now. Some other day. RE: when you came in, the air went out, adna - adna - 08-21-2019 one touch will make you so nervous you might stop breathing one touch will make you so reckless you might start feeling one touch will finally show to me what you can't hide ADNA RE: when you came in, the air went out, adna - Sabbath - 08-21-2019 SabbatH i'll let you play the role. i'll be your animal. If she could, she would readily split her heart in two and share it with her sister so they might both be close to whole again. In many ways, though, Sabbath is still childish in her belief that things will ever be complete for them. Their loneliness is a fracture that has healed crooked. How far would they have to break in order to be made right again? Would they have to face the fire as their father did? Would Beqanna’s magic swallow them whole and crave them new bodies, stronger bodies like it did for their mother? No, fortune does not smile on them, but she can imagine that she feels the sun on her face for now. Adna’s words are all teeth when she lies and Sabbath hears it but she says nothing. If she just loved her enough, maybe these scars could fade. If she just held her a little tighter then they could be together again. And so she does. She clings until she worries their scales may fuse into one and then she holds on a little longer. Her tears well up in her eyes but she keeps herself from crying and being so weak. The younger girl puts on a brave smile when Adna confesses that she has missed her, and this time it is truth. (Had anyone ever said they missed her? Had anyone even felt that for her before?) Here, it’s so easy to forget the way Eight made her into a plaything. The taste of his magic and blood, like battery acid on her tongue, feels like a bad dream in another life. There is only safety here. She exhales and her breath shakes a little before she finally pulls away to look into Adna’s eyes. Sabbath nods and laughs, returning the soft bump in a tender display of affection. But then she asks about the father and Sabbath feels her smile wither. “Oh.. I’m not sure. It’s not like I’m special to him or.. to anyone, really,” she says, those tears rising up and threatening to spill over this time. She forces her smile to return and she tries to swallow the knot in her throat. How could she tell Adna that her only worth to boys is her body? She isn’t clever or funny. She’s not even pretty enough for them to stay. She’s just teeth and warm blood. “His name is Bethlehem. I don’t think he’s really from anywhere. I named her Prayer, and luckily she looks more like him than me,” she says with a laugh that tumbles crooked from her lips. She tries to smile but the expression is just pointed teeth pretending they’re happy. RE: when you came in, the air went out, adna - adna - 08-21-2019 one touch will make you so nervous you might stop breathing one touch will make you so reckless you might start feeling one touch will finally show to me what you can't hide ADNA RE: when you came in, the air went out, adna - Sabbath - 08-21-2019 SabbatH i'll let you play the role. i'll be your animal. They are alike in many ways, but Sabbath does not handle pain in the way that her sister does. While the elder builds walls around her pain and keeps it safe from further harm, she prefers to rip it out. She carves new scars over the old so no one can ever say they left their mark on her. Sabbath claws at every shred of emptied hope and smothers her weeping heart until she’s sure it’s really dead this time. She has learned to make every pain her own and shape her agonies with her own two hands. Every old ache is just a new skin to shed, for her. It’s just another notch in the knife handle. She watches Adna and searches her eyes intensely as she remains silent for a second too long. This isn’t careful thought of trying to remember someone. Sabbath is not quick with words or ideas, but she’s got the eyes of a hawk when things aren’t what they seem. But maybe Adna is onto her because her words disrupt that suspicion and flood her with something that slices through her instead. She’s numb when the kiss finds her cheek and her eyes stare off at something far from here. What was she hiding? The serpent sister watches from the corner of her eye but she wonders if maybe she shouldn’t press it. Was he special to you? She clenches her teeth at the question and she’s quick to shake her head no – too quick. Sabbath had uprooted all the little hopes and daydreams that night had given her and set them on fire with everything else. They never had time to take root. Still, a part of her wondered if he would ever seek them out or if he even wanted to know his daughter’s face. She blinks away tears and just keeps shaking her head no. “If you make them special, it’s that much easier for them to crush you,” she says and her voice is magma rising up in her. “You have to be the first to leave or you wake up alone.” The embers churn in their furnace and roar back into an all consuming flame. As much as Sabbath liked to destroy the parts of herself that she had allowed to become vulnerable, she liked to ruin others more. Their father gave her the gift of hunger and she dreamed of ripping out the throat of every boy who wouldn’t say they loved her back. She wanted to tear out their hearts that refused her and lick her lips clean of them like sticky honey on her tongue. “When they promise you forever, you have to promise not to bite down too hard. You’re both lying, anyway.” RE: when you came in, the air went out, adna - adna - 08-21-2019 one touch will make you so nervous you might stop breathing one touch will make you so reckless you might start feeling one touch will finally show to me what you can't hide ADNA RE: when you came in, the air went out, adna - Sabbath - 08-21-2019 SabbatH i'll let you play the role. i'll be your animal. In this life, Sabbath has learned, you are either the deer or you are the hunter. In this life, love is just a hunting season where perfect aim is a mercy. But then how had their parents found a way to hammer their love into something that lasted so many years? How could they each be the hunter and the prey and both come out on top? She’s spent so many nights trying to pick it apart and learn from them but her hands are always stained red in the end. Would anyone ever love their daughters enough to drag themselves over broken glass and still have enough life in them to say they loved them? She doesn’t think there was anyone waiting to find her, not like that. Her edges are too sharp from being broken so many times. No one can get close enough to kiss her softly and she doesn’t want to learn how to let them. Those sage green eyes watch the curve of her sister’s lip but she can’t quite scratch the surface enough to make out the secrets underneath it. They’ll drown together, that much is clear, but she doesn’t know if they’re both dying inside for the same reasons. Why do her eyes flow with pity when she looks at her? Her breathing softens and she calms, slowly but surely. “You don’t have any reason to be sorry. I’ve always known where to find you, if I needed you. I just didn’t know how badly I did,” she explains, shrugging her small shoulders. She’s quick to dismiss apologies and she’s always the girl who says “it’s fine” when people lay their sorry’s at her feet. “Prayer is in Tephra. She heals, like Mother, and she doesn’t look like us.. Not at all.” A smile manages to find its way to her face and this time it is sincere, though weary. Sabbath knows her child will never know how the taste of someone’s blood changes when they die between your teeth. No, her daughter will put them all back together instead of breaking them apart. She smiles because her child is hardly hers at all. RE: when you came in, the air went out, adna - adna - 08-21-2019 one touch will make you so nervous you might stop breathing one touch will make you so reckless you might start feeling one touch will finally show to me what you can't hide ADNA |