Ea
11-05-2016, 08:48 PM
now you're staring at a queen.
Most days, she is fine.
Ea spends most of her time moving, alone, walking through the dense forest and wading in the Ischian pools. Sometimes she swims -- short or far distances, it doesn’t matter; she’ll swim as far it takes for her to forget. And most days, she does: in the moments she gets lost in conversation, or when her body is taken over by exhaustion, she can barely remember who she is.
Each day, she remembers less and less.
She remembers how Ramiel felt pressed against her as they slept (she can even feel him, sometimes, and sleeps so soundly), but can’t quite remember his scent. She remembers Sela’s laugh, and the way she wiggled her body as she walked, but were her eyes a dark hazel, like Ea’s natural eyes, or a bright gold like Ramiel’s? Of course she remembers Kha’s eyes, hazel and deep and sullen, but he so seldom spoke that she can’t remember if his voice had matured yet. She even remembers things she wishes she would forget: how cold she could be to Ramiel, when all he ever wanted was to love and be loved by her, and when eventually he began to recoil from her touch, she only returned it in kind. How often she would snap at Sela when the young girl annoyed her. How she ignored Kha far more than she should have, because he was so different and his unknown made Ea uncomfortable.
But Ea was not special. Her loss was not unique, especially after the Reckoning. You would be hard pressed to find someone in Beqanna who had not lost something, whether it was a family member or land or magic. Ea still had Sabrael and her new Ischian family. Who was she to complain, really?
The silver girl seeks him out alone. Of all the co-leaders, Ashley is the safest bet for company: Tiphon is hard for Ea to speak to one-on-one, for obvious reasons, and she had yet to see Phaedrus on the island. She knows that Ashley had ruled the Dale once, long ago, but not much else about him. She finds the buckskin not too deeply hidden within the jungle -- the ground is still more sand than dirt, but there are enough fallen twigs and sticks that there is no way Ea could have snuck up on him; the crackling beneath her feet tells on her.
“Ashley, hello,” she says as she approaches, her smile forced. Tight. She inhales audibly, starting to say something else, but decides instead that she lacks anything to say.
Ea spends most of her time moving, alone, walking through the dense forest and wading in the Ischian pools. Sometimes she swims -- short or far distances, it doesn’t matter; she’ll swim as far it takes for her to forget. And most days, she does: in the moments she gets lost in conversation, or when her body is taken over by exhaustion, she can barely remember who she is.
Each day, she remembers less and less.
She remembers how Ramiel felt pressed against her as they slept (she can even feel him, sometimes, and sleeps so soundly), but can’t quite remember his scent. She remembers Sela’s laugh, and the way she wiggled her body as she walked, but were her eyes a dark hazel, like Ea’s natural eyes, or a bright gold like Ramiel’s? Of course she remembers Kha’s eyes, hazel and deep and sullen, but he so seldom spoke that she can’t remember if his voice had matured yet. She even remembers things she wishes she would forget: how cold she could be to Ramiel, when all he ever wanted was to love and be loved by her, and when eventually he began to recoil from her touch, she only returned it in kind. How often she would snap at Sela when the young girl annoyed her. How she ignored Kha far more than she should have, because he was so different and his unknown made Ea uncomfortable.
But Ea was not special. Her loss was not unique, especially after the Reckoning. You would be hard pressed to find someone in Beqanna who had not lost something, whether it was a family member or land or magic. Ea still had Sabrael and her new Ischian family. Who was she to complain, really?
The silver girl seeks him out alone. Of all the co-leaders, Ashley is the safest bet for company: Tiphon is hard for Ea to speak to one-on-one, for obvious reasons, and she had yet to see Phaedrus on the island. She knows that Ashley had ruled the Dale once, long ago, but not much else about him. She finds the buckskin not too deeply hidden within the jungle -- the ground is still more sand than dirt, but there are enough fallen twigs and sticks that there is no way Ea could have snuck up on him; the crackling beneath her feet tells on her.
“Ashley, hello,” she says as she approaches, her smile forced. Tight. She inhales audibly, starting to say something else, but decides instead that she lacks anything to say.
[sorry it ends so abruptly but I finished it on my phone just 4 u
]