09-09-2020, 10:19 PM
you were my crown, now i'm in exile seeing you out
She manages to keep her composure until Tarte disappears along the horizon, and then her world comes crashing down.
One she is gone, the keening begins - it is a high pitched, terrible sound that echoes over the beaches of the Cove, her grief unfettered and raw. Her talons leave gouges in the black pebbles of the beach as she takes to the skies, her feathered wings shimmering against the fading sunlight. Her mourning continues as the dragon wheels through the clouds, cutting her way towards the border with Pangea. If he is to ruin her, she will ruin whatever pieces of him that she can cut away as well.
The white dragon lands heavily in the nest, flames waiting at the back of her throat. Swiftly she gathers up the shards of each of her children’s eggs and shoves them out of the nest, tucking them away safely for later. She will keep them because they are the few pieces of her children she has left until she can find them again. The children that she has raised are the only pure things left in her life, and she will not let Ghaul tarnish that like he has tarnished everything else. However, all of this - this nest, this home, this place - it must be destroyed. Every piece of it will be nothing but ash when she is done.
She is quick but also meticulous as she pulls the nest apart, trampling the bones of their combined kills beneath the materials she had built this nest with. Cress’s skull she tosses from the nest as well, though she will not take it with her - she is certain that Frenzy, if the girl returns, will want to keep the piece of her birth mother, and she wants her adopted child to have some peace in life. After today, Clarissa will not be back for her.
Once the nest is unrecognizable, Clarissa gathers up the shards of eggs in her taloned forelimbs, using her muscular hind legs to propel her back into the sky. As she pulls herself back to the treetops with wings that have begun to strain with fatigue, she lights the entire thing on fire. She is not careful or precise with her flames and the fire spreads quickly to the surrounding trees, but Clarissa is already gone, set off to find her children that Tarte explained had run north.
Her molten gold eyes well up with tears yet again as she carries herself south first, her eyes tracing over the terrain of Pangea as she flies overhead. She can see the valleys where they used to play, and where she had met his half-siblings, Draco and Desire. There is the river that runs through the kingdom, where they had splashed and swam and there, there is the place where they had made love the first time after he nearly died from being too arrogant. His arrogance is his downfall.
Finally, the terrain underneath of her changes completely, and she loses herself among the mountains of Hyaline. She has never spent any time here, other than when she finally fled Loess, and so the former kingdom of the East is alien to her, which is almost comforting. She keeps mostly to the shoreline as she flies and the journey goes quickly, and before she realizes it she is too tired to fly any longer. Tears gather in her eyes as she brings herself to a landing amidst tall redwoods, in a land that is even more strange to her golden eyes.
This is not a place for dragons, and she wonders if she will be welcomed here.
Stifling a sob she releases the eggs at last, curling around them as if her children are still nestled within them. The fire in her belly has dulled now and she allows herself to truly cry for the first time since tearing the nest to shreds, hardly noticing as she loses grip on her shifting and begins to melt back into a horse.
One she is gone, the keening begins - it is a high pitched, terrible sound that echoes over the beaches of the Cove, her grief unfettered and raw. Her talons leave gouges in the black pebbles of the beach as she takes to the skies, her feathered wings shimmering against the fading sunlight. Her mourning continues as the dragon wheels through the clouds, cutting her way towards the border with Pangea. If he is to ruin her, she will ruin whatever pieces of him that she can cut away as well.
The white dragon lands heavily in the nest, flames waiting at the back of her throat. Swiftly she gathers up the shards of each of her children’s eggs and shoves them out of the nest, tucking them away safely for later. She will keep them because they are the few pieces of her children she has left until she can find them again. The children that she has raised are the only pure things left in her life, and she will not let Ghaul tarnish that like he has tarnished everything else. However, all of this - this nest, this home, this place - it must be destroyed. Every piece of it will be nothing but ash when she is done.
She is quick but also meticulous as she pulls the nest apart, trampling the bones of their combined kills beneath the materials she had built this nest with. Cress’s skull she tosses from the nest as well, though she will not take it with her - she is certain that Frenzy, if the girl returns, will want to keep the piece of her birth mother, and she wants her adopted child to have some peace in life. After today, Clarissa will not be back for her.
Once the nest is unrecognizable, Clarissa gathers up the shards of eggs in her taloned forelimbs, using her muscular hind legs to propel her back into the sky. As she pulls herself back to the treetops with wings that have begun to strain with fatigue, she lights the entire thing on fire. She is not careful or precise with her flames and the fire spreads quickly to the surrounding trees, but Clarissa is already gone, set off to find her children that Tarte explained had run north.
Her molten gold eyes well up with tears yet again as she carries herself south first, her eyes tracing over the terrain of Pangea as she flies overhead. She can see the valleys where they used to play, and where she had met his half-siblings, Draco and Desire. There is the river that runs through the kingdom, where they had splashed and swam and there, there is the place where they had made love the first time after he nearly died from being too arrogant. His arrogance is his downfall.
Finally, the terrain underneath of her changes completely, and she loses herself among the mountains of Hyaline. She has never spent any time here, other than when she finally fled Loess, and so the former kingdom of the East is alien to her, which is almost comforting. She keeps mostly to the shoreline as she flies and the journey goes quickly, and before she realizes it she is too tired to fly any longer. Tears gather in her eyes as she brings herself to a landing amidst tall redwoods, in a land that is even more strange to her golden eyes.
This is not a place for dragons, and she wonders if she will be welcomed here.
Stifling a sob she releases the eggs at last, curling around them as if her children are still nestled within them. The fire in her belly has dulled now and she allows herself to truly cry for the first time since tearing the nest to shreds, hardly noticing as she loses grip on her shifting and begins to melt back into a horse.
@[Yanhua]