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but we call it home - echis - 09-03-2020 echis
“ I will love you until we run out of mornings. Then I will love you in the dark. ”
She stands motionless at the river’s edge, staring at the waters without much notice of the passing time. Has she been here all day? Maybe more than one day. Everything feels so hard to remember. Echis is only certain that she is suffering now and she was suffering then, too. Nothing else exists beyond this except the idea that she could throw herself into the current. Her body is so weak it would pull her under in seconds. She would have the release she thinks she craves. But some golden thread keeps her tethered to the shore, waiting. It tugs her head down and commands her to eat and survive. Echis hates how hard it is to breathe around the pain of every movement, and yet she obeys this compelling force. She wheezes softly as she grazes and winces each time she bites at a few blades of grass. Was it always this hard to simply exist? There is a snapping of twigs behind her and she lifts her head quickly despite the way her every nerve screams at her to be still. A feral sort of fear floods her veins and gives her the courage to shy backward as she impulsively begins to cry. The tears come in shaking sobs as she braces herself for whatever reveals itself from the underbrush. “Please.. Not again..” she mumbles in breathless gasps. She isn’t even sure what she means by the words but they come tumbling from her lips before she can even think of what else to say. Pleading for mercy has become a new kind of normalcy for her, somehow. Little scales push themselves up from her glistening muscles but they flake to the ground a few seconds after. Her body is too exhausted to even try and protect itself, now. @[Ryatah] RE: but we call it home - Ryatah - 09-11-2020 ── and i was never sure whether you were the lighthouse or the storm ── ryatah @[echis] RE: but we call it home - echis - 09-11-2020 echis
“ I will love you until we run out of mornings. Then I will love you in the dark. ”
Echis has always thought the world of her mother, of the surrogate father who always tells her goodnight. Even now, with nothing left but a few droplets of her soul, seeing Ryatah provides a sense of calm to her. It doesn’t stop the heaving sobs from bubbling up, but it quells the fear. The soft glow of her keeps the girl in place when the angel draws closer to her child. But her name is strange against her ears. “Echis?” she parrots, and then she is thrown into the depths of agony when her mother touches that raw skin. She stumbles back with a desperate yelp of pain. What happened to her? Where has she been? Echis hardly hears the questions as her pulse throbs wildly in her ears. How could she even begin to answer? She takes in gasping breaths as she tries to bring her focus back to the conversation. “I.. I’m lost,” she chokes out. “I woke up.. on a beach. Then I came here. I don’t know.. I don’t know..” And then she’s crying again. She wants to remember, to feel something other than this frantic terror. Every time she reaches for whatever came before, though, it feels like remembering being born. Echis stares into the glimmering amethysts embedded in Ryatah’s face, but they only make her feel a different shade of sorrow. It feels like failure and shame, she thinks. “I’m so sorry..” @[Ryatah] RE: but we call it home - Ryatah - 09-14-2020 ── and i was never sure whether you were the lighthouse or the storm ── ryatah @[echis] RE: but we call it home - echis - 09-16-2020 [quote="echis" pid='107944' dateline='1599865050'] echis
“ I will love you until we run out of mornings. Then I will love you in the dark. ”
Echis has never asked anything of Ryatah. Her love has always been more than enough to keep her daughter happy. She recognizes her face now like someone she might have seen in passing the day before, though she can’t be entirely sure. She seems so hurt by the confusion in Echis’s voice. And so she repeats it once more. You’re with me. Her brow furrows but she nods anyway because going home sounds like something good when it’s spoken in Ryatah’s voice. She sucks in a gasp when the healing first touches her like a cool balm that spreads over her tired, broken body. Her skin weaves its way across her face and down her spine, extending down her shoulders and hips. It feels so strange as it cloaks her from the burning pain that had been her existence just minutes prior. The midnight black of her coat springs up to warm her against the winter chill but her white mane is made of fluff, much like it had been when she was born. Scars the shape of teeth riddle her skin now - across her shoulders and down her belly. They seem faded, as though she earned them a decade before. A bright pink line across her throat - fresh, new - marks the injury that took her life. She blinks, and she is overcome with a flood of relief that it no longer hurts just to do this. Fat tears come rolling down her cheeks and the salt of them does not ignite the agony anymore. Her mother eaches out to touch her, and she flinches at first, terrified of what being touched may bring. But there is only a gentle warmth beneath her affections. She says there is nothing to apologize for, but it does not clear the storm of emotions still roaring in her breast - the confusion, the fear, the sorrow. Echis takes a cautious step forward. Her body still warns her that to be held may be hell. But that brief brush of Ryatah touching her neck had felt good - the first good feeling she can remember. She eases into an embrace at the rate of glaciers migrating, until at last she is pressed close to the angel’s chest. She exhales a breath that she hadn’t realized she was holding. “There were others. Everyone looked confused, and tired,” she whispers, biting her lip to keep the choking sobs at bay. “I didn’t know any of them. I just know we all went somewhere very far away.” @[Ryatah] RE: but we call it home - Ryatah - 09-27-2020 ── and i was never sure whether you were the lighthouse or the storm ── ryatah @[echis] RE: but we call it home - echis - 10-04-2020 echis
“ I will love you until we run out of mornings. Then I will love you in the dark. ”
Echoes of screams - some belonging to her, some to others - flash across her mind as she allows Ryatah to trace the new scars ravaging her young body. She stands perfectly still and holds her breath without ever meaning to. Somewhere in the haze of her memory, she knows that her mother would never harm her, even if she can’t recognize her. But the pressure against her healed wounds taps into the core of her fear. She had thought herself safe in the palm of a god and still she was nearly destroyed. She exhales sharply when the angel touches her throat and she wants to shy away. But Echis steels herself against the urge to flee. The serpent child only allows herself to tremble. “Carnage,” she repeats, more a lesson than a recollection. Her tone is flat as his name does not inspire any emotion or imagery for her. Echis stares into the stones embedded in Ryatah’s face as she searches for meaning in her words. Why would he call on her again? Her brow furrows. Something awful stirs in her gut and makes her wince in pain until she pushes it down. Tears threaten to spill down her cheeks when her mother speaks again. Ryatah had been the constant in her life, even if she does not remember this. She always came to the river and she always dried her daughter’s tears. It made her leaving mean nothing at the end of the day. Echis could anchor herself to the hope of the angel’s return and weather any storm this way. Even this one, no matter how long it lasts. “I answered because I thought he’d help.” @[Ryatah] |