dress me up and watch me die
He comes like the older brother he is with adoration in his eyes and a familial tenderness in his voice. A smile stretches across her peeling lips, but it quickly withers away as she looks at the Dale in front of her. Ramiel welcomes her and comes to her side, but she flinches as though in fear. "I'm sorry," she whispers with pain chiseled into her voice, "I'm not so used to being approached." Their parents weren't willing to show her quite so much love and she has never before received it from anyone else. Estela would stay close, but there was never any real love; it was the connection of blood that bound them together and nothing more. They had no one else at one point in time and so they leaned on each other for companionship. Without her here, Elaria feels almost lost, even confused. No one else ever wants to come near and so she's startled by how easily Ramiel finds himself next to her as though unfazed by her ugliness.
"I'm ugly," she thinks aloud to him, but she regrets saying it the second it slips from her lips. Her head shakes disapprovingly but she tries to recover quickly by replying to him, hoping he didn't hear her previous comment. "I've missed you too," but in reality she missed everyone and everything. Although her family hasn't been most approving of her the idea of having one makes her feel as though she is somewhat normal and not a monster. Estela is proud that they're different, that they look like Hell spat them out, but all Elaria wants is to be beautiful and to be admired. From any perspective the girl is frightening and defying all odds; she should be buried in her tomb rather than walking, breathing, living.. But Ramiel gives her just a moment of that satisfaction. It's enough to warrant a smile from her. "Thank you," she leans forward and presses her cheek into his shoulder but the moment her skin weakens she pulls away, afraid to leave a trail of her peeling flesh.
When Ramiel's eyes drift to the evergreens, hers follow. The trees are so familiar and yet somehow she almost forgot about them in her absence. Their scent, their sentinel-like stance, it's all rushing back to her now when her gaze levels onto them. It was near those trees that she was born, or so she thinks. There were hills around her but it was farther into the heart of the kingdom where mother did not have to concern herself with outside dangers. Father would've protected them, but no risks could be taken. Elaria is their second love child. They had to take every precaution, but once she was born, that adoration was forced, fleeting.
She still remembers father's distress and mother's confusion.
They tried to mask it, but Elaria knew something was so very wrong.
The gentle tone that Ramiel adopts pulls the girl from her bitter memories. Her attention flickers from the trees back to him and she nods happily. "So very much," but in reality she doesn't have much to tell, "I look forward to meeting them." Her family is what gives her a sense of normalcy and so of course she's excited to meet her niece and nephew. With a renewed happiness in her step she follows Ramiel to the evergreens. "What are their names?" she asks on the way there before, "Will your son be your heir?" Because isn't that what father did? Pass on his throne to a son?
elaria