Home had stopped feeling like home a long time ago, but with the appearance of the strange, brindle stallion who had taken over Tephra, she found that there was nothing that kept her heart tethered there anymore. She was certain her family would move on, certain because of the rumors, because of the whispers of nightmares haunting sleepless nights, certain because of the slow exodus that had already begun. Individuals and families alike seemed to be moving on to elsewhere - and though there were some who seemed resigned to stay, she could not help but wonder how long that would last.
She is no stranger to sleepless nights, to dreams shaped by fear and horror, memories kept alive for far too long and twisted into something more gruesome than they ever were at their origin. She knows the cracks they make, the invisible fissures that stretch across her spirit like the veins on a birch leaf, many and forever and intricate. One nightmare is exhaustion, two is a quiet kind of dread. But a month of them, a year? She knows how that can change someone, how fear is so good at carving away these little pieces until, before you’ve had a chance to notice the erosion, you are someone else entirely.
She is eroding.
She is not herself.
When she finally unfurls her wings and takes to the skies, there is only some strange kind of dissonance inside her chest. It lives beside her heart, inside her heart - or maybe it is all that is left of that timid beating thing inside her ribs. There is only one figure she looks for down on the shores below her, but when she does not spy the familiar gold and white basking in the humid warmth, she leaves the volcanic land without even a quiet goodbye.
There is a place in the forest that isn’t quite theirs, a tiny meadow made by a few trees that had fallen after a long summer of storms, and she knows that her best chance of finding him is in that quiet spot of sunshine where everything is lazy and quiet and perfectly right. She lands carefully among the grass and flowers, pausing for a moment just to absorb the peacefulness of this halfway place. Not a home but certainly an escape.
Home, or the closest thing to it, is the man who stands in a pool of sunshine while wildflowers sway against his legs. “Aha.” She says, and at once she can feel this darkness inside her soul retreating from the light of him. There is a smile on her lips now, something soft and warm and full of easy mischief as she crosses this little patch of open grass to join him. “Right where I left you.” As she reaches him, her lips find the curve of his jaw in a gentle kind of kiss, just a whisper of intimacy as she draws back to face him. “Hello Svedka.” But she needs more of his warmth, more of his light, needs him to help her chase away this seeping cold inside her chest. So she steps close again, touches his jaw and his neck, traces the curve of his shoulder with the soft of lips warmed by the sun beneath her skin. “Can you stay awhile?”
aureline
dear wilderness, be at your best
her armor is thin as the fabric of her dress