you're the beacon / gansey

[wound]

T he sun feels bright against her eyes — too bright. It stings and burns at the corners of her eyes. She tosses her head, throwing her silvery forelock in front of her face in hopes of lessening the weight of the sunlight. When her chin lowers again, her daughter stands before her, so close they are practically touching noses. Wishbone’s amber eyes are hazy, as though a fog were covering them. When Wound steps back, an audible sob chokes out of her mouth. Dread fills her stomach, winding between her intestines and against her liver. Her daughter — her beautiful, dangerous, reckless daughter — is covered in sticky, maroon blood. It pools at their feet, soaking the sand they stand on until the grains are also saturated a dark red color. “Who did this?” Wound’s voice comes out in a delirious quaver, barely heard above a deep roaring in her ears. She swirls around, but she can’t identify the source of the sound. In fact, there is nothing around her besides a high, bright sun and endless sand and then dark, eternal nothingness in the corners of her vision. Wishbone sways, off-balance and looking for all the world like she’s walking dead. “Nerine,” the girl whispers. Then she’s falling, falling, falling and Wound is reaching to scoop her up. Wishbone suddenly snaps to a halt and — Wound startles awake, covered in a thin layer of perspiration. It’s nighttime, but the numerous constellations above provide enough light that she has a sense of her surroundings. The echo of the ocean’s waves register as the deep roar from her dream (rather, her nightmare). Wound shivers, rising from where she had been nestled among fronds along the outer fringes of a Tephra forest. Taking a deep breath, the silver bay begins moving toward the shoreline. Her hooves meet pebbles at the treeline. It’s a picturesque view in the night, with the moon reflecting off the quiet tide of the ocean. There’s a slight breeze (enough to cool her skin from the sweat, but not enough to send shivers down her spine) and Wound watches as a whale breaches for a breath of air in the near distance. A sigh leaves her lungs, allowing the refreshing constellation-glowing view to clear the cobwebs of the nightmare from her mind.

credit to nat of adoxography.

@[Gansey]