oh, you know I need your mystic mind -- rhy cont.

[Kora]

It’s hard to imagine the Jungle destroyed. Even in the day that I’d been there, the rainforest had seemed imposing and impervious to threat -- even to the threat of time itself. My glowing blue gaze does not stray from that of my sister’s as she speaks of the healer helping the kingdom to recover. “I’m glad,” I murmur, and then, “I’m glad you’re safe, too.” I blink a little, caught off guard at the emotion that courses through me when I think that Rhy might have been injured in the disaster -- or worse. It is then that Rhy’s sparks fade, drawn forcibly inward by the electric mare. Again, there is a jolt of emotion. I know what that feels like. Whenever I practiced stopping the snowfall around me, my efforts always seemed counterintuitive, unnatural somehow -- like I could feel the ice in my veins rebelling against the suppression. I don’t know what it’s like to be electric, but that is what Rhy is. She is electric. Yet from the start, she’d been told she had to be something else -- all because of me and my fear. Just as the snow begins to take on the stormy shape of the thoughts and emotions running through me, Rhy steps toward me, tells me to breathe. It sounds so much like them that I freeze, refocusing my eyes as I stare at her through cold and billowing sheets of white. In. Mom’s voice saying dad’s words. Out. Carefully, I slow my breathing -- my exhale turns to frost in the air between us. Again. Eyelashes tipped in ice squeeze shut while I do as she says. And in the long silence between us, I fear she must hear the pounding of my butterfly-heart as clear as day. When the rush of sound quiets in my ears, I open my eyes. The storm has subsided, though large flakes still flutter through a chilly wind about us. Rhy stands there, close -- though we are never as close as we should be. “You sound so much like them,” I whisper, shuffling my feet. Snow mixes with earth, becoming a muddied mess beneath my hooves. I look up and meet my twin sister’s gaze. She seems so calm -- so much like Riagan -- and the guilt I’ve always felt comes flooding to the surface in an instant, filling every syllable. “I wish I’d never been so afraid, Rhy. If I hadn't -- if it weren’t for me...” You could have had mom and dad. You could have been yourself. And all at once, overcome as I am with the regret that’s haunted me for years, I force the snow to die away. I concentrate on the chill in the air, willing it to dissipate. Natural beams of dawning sunlight begin to melt the small drifts that had been building around our ankles. After all, she must hate the snow. How could she not, when it had robbed her of everything she loved? When I’m done, all that remains is the thin and iridescent layer of ice gleaming upon my gold-and-silver skin. Clearing my throat, I avert my glowing gaze. “You shouldn’t have to be the only one,” I say, alluding to the snow’s disappearance, though in truth it’s because I don’t want her to hate me any more than she already did. k o r a winter manipulation, liquification, astraphobia

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