It is with a heavy heart that she untangles herself from Sunny’s embrace and begins the trek to the mountain.
It has taken her months to regain any semblance of strength - she knows that Rhae has been worried that her grief will end up killing her. She has lost quite a bit of weight, and her sunken features have been a great cause of worry. Gone is the once-beautiful, golden Pangean Queen; her dull copper coat is stained with mud, and her mane and tail have started to form knots from lack of care. Even her lively , expressive brown eyes seem darker, as if the loss of Cress has permanently changed her. Cress used to be whisper in her ear as a foal and tell her how beautiful and perfect she is, but Dawn is but a shell of that so many years later.
She doesn’t look back or even stop until the mountain looms before her eyes. Only then does her pace falter as she stares up at the home of the fairies, her dark eyes troubled. Will all of this be for naught? She supposes that there is no way to know for sure until she has climbed as far as she can and pleads her case to the gods and goddesses.
As she begins her ascent she reminisces on the stories her mother used to tell her about this place of immense magic. When the fairies had raged and taken away all of the magic from Beqanna, the mountain was the only place where magic played unfettered. It was here that Cress had given birth to her older sister, Rhaenyra, and kept the girl warm from the fires within her chest. Flamevein, her mother’s truest love, had met her here for the last time before vanishing from Beqanna, and Cress had spent many months visiting the mountain in hopes of seeing him again. Even long after Rhaenyra disappeared, Cress had hoped that the girl’s father would return and restore their family.
Finally, when the air grows thin and her limbs are sore from the climb, she finds herself stopping. There is still a great deal of mountain ahead of her, and briefly she wonders if anyone has reached the summit.
Certainly not. It seems impossible to go any further.
Praying that anyone can hear her, she begins.
“Please,” she says, wondering if the fairies will appear to her, or just watch and listen from their hidden alcoves. “I am told that I gained my powers from my father, whom I have never met. I was raised entirely by my mother, Cress, who was the strongest woman I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. She fought for what she believed in and never backed down; she healed others when the plague ravaged Beqanna; she never stopped helping her friends and family and even strangers. I would give everything that makes me... well, me... to be a bit more like my mother.”
A shiver runs through her as she fully recognizes the implications of what she has said, but she will not take it back.
“Everything that I am, I would give it up to keep a piece of her.”
Basically, Dawn wants to give up her polar bear shifting in exchange for healing because she wants to help others the way Cress did
It has taken her months to regain any semblance of strength - she knows that Rhae has been worried that her grief will end up killing her. She has lost quite a bit of weight, and her sunken features have been a great cause of worry. Gone is the once-beautiful, golden Pangean Queen; her dull copper coat is stained with mud, and her mane and tail have started to form knots from lack of care. Even her lively , expressive brown eyes seem darker, as if the loss of Cress has permanently changed her. Cress used to be whisper in her ear as a foal and tell her how beautiful and perfect she is, but Dawn is but a shell of that so many years later.
She doesn’t look back or even stop until the mountain looms before her eyes. Only then does her pace falter as she stares up at the home of the fairies, her dark eyes troubled. Will all of this be for naught? She supposes that there is no way to know for sure until she has climbed as far as she can and pleads her case to the gods and goddesses.
As she begins her ascent she reminisces on the stories her mother used to tell her about this place of immense magic. When the fairies had raged and taken away all of the magic from Beqanna, the mountain was the only place where magic played unfettered. It was here that Cress had given birth to her older sister, Rhaenyra, and kept the girl warm from the fires within her chest. Flamevein, her mother’s truest love, had met her here for the last time before vanishing from Beqanna, and Cress had spent many months visiting the mountain in hopes of seeing him again. Even long after Rhaenyra disappeared, Cress had hoped that the girl’s father would return and restore their family.
Finally, when the air grows thin and her limbs are sore from the climb, she finds herself stopping. There is still a great deal of mountain ahead of her, and briefly she wonders if anyone has reached the summit.
Certainly not. It seems impossible to go any further.
Praying that anyone can hear her, she begins.
“Please,” she says, wondering if the fairies will appear to her, or just watch and listen from their hidden alcoves. “I am told that I gained my powers from my father, whom I have never met. I was raised entirely by my mother, Cress, who was the strongest woman I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. She fought for what she believed in and never backed down; she healed others when the plague ravaged Beqanna; she never stopped helping her friends and family and even strangers. I would give everything that makes me... well, me... to be a bit more like my mother.”
A shiver runs through her as she fully recognizes the implications of what she has said, but she will not take it back.
“Everything that I am, I would give it up to keep a piece of her.”
Basically, Dawn wants to give up her polar bear shifting in exchange for healing because she wants to help others the way Cress did