“No, no,” she says in response to the appaloosa’s apology. “It makes me feel secure.” Eila ducks her head when she realizes how much she’s let on. But it is true. The heat wraps around her the same way her invisibility does, like a blanket that is pulled tight around her shoulders, keeping everything (and everyone) at a distance. She thinks she’ll be able to hide herself well within this chaotic place. Maybe, she won’t even have to disappear to stay concealed. Maybe, she won’t have to hide at all. “I like it,” she says, raising her chin once again.
And just like that, the duo enters the forest. Lexa seems eager to get going, to bring her quota home for some prize at the end of it. It causes a spark of anger to flare inside the paint’s chest. Perhaps she shouldn’t have gone to the field in the first place. She knew it would be filled with recruiters who cared more for filling their coffers than providing sanctuary to those who so desperately needed it. But desperate is exactly what she had been. Loneliness had gnawed at her very soul since the day she was born. Her mother’s cold shoulder had become its own sort of monster, an entity that clawed at her every time she tried to seek her dam’s affections. Eventually, acceptance lined the furrows in her soul; she would be her own company, her own solace.
She only hoped others would reach out in a show of altruism, too.
With a set jaw, Eila moves just behind her recruiter. No matter. If she had to act the part to live here for her own sake, she would do just that. Lexa makes it easier for them by slicing apart the undergrowth with sharp implements that seem to come out of nowhere. The silver girl tries to see around her to get a better look, but the other woman is fast. Too fast. Eila thinks it will take her years to be able to navigate these endless-looping trails and dense foliage. She’s certainly up for the challenge, though. And she has a trick of her own that will make it all the more easy.
But as they encroach further into the humid land, she starts to notice the charring. On the trunks of many of the trees, evidence of a once-raging marks them. The ground is littered with great big leaves, but underneath, she can feel the soft layer of ash, can smell the faint scent of a past burning. It is a curiosity, but she is no stranger to fire. Behind Lexa’s back, the new comer sets the end of her nose aflame. The sparks dance in her mismatched eyes; the heat engulfs her unsinged face. She swallows the spark before the other girl can notice, savoring the burn of it extinguishing down her throat. The sisters might not take too kindly to more fire, she thinks. Perhaps it will stay a secret a bit longer.
The appaloosa is a gracious (if deviant, selfish) host. She tells Eila of the purpose of each clearing and gully, informs her of the pools and caves and meeting places scattered throughout the kingdom. The paint girl nods every time, too overwhelmed with all the information and her own thoughts to supply any other sign of understanding. They are alone, though, and that makes the girl marginally bolder.
Until Lagertha comes, that is. The grey woman towers over the small abstang. And if she had felt relatively safe with Lexa (the black and white horse had given her no reason to fear her), she feels her bravery being leeched away with every step the khaleesi takes towards her. Instead, a cold resolve fills all the empty furrows her mother’s abandonment had carved in her. Her legs disappear unconsciously before she can stop herself; her invisibility is like an instinct that’s never failed to keep her alive so far. But even if she is afraid, her face becomes steel to match the warrior’s. “I am Eila,” she says, her knees shaking but (thankfully) invisible. She wonders what shadows lie in this woman of authority’s head, wonders if she will learn them as intimately as her own – wonders if they will keep her long enough to find out. “Lexa made the Jungle seem like my best option of the bunch.” She lights a spark then, though only verbal. “I hope she is not wrong.”
Eila