[private] someone's marching through the fire to find you; ilka

[Ilka]

Faultlines tremble underneath my glass house

She has never had reason to fear the dark - not when it has always been so much a part of her family. She can remember how Shahrizai had revolted against it - though he had never told her why it chafed him so, but as the years passed and so many of their children were born with shadows of their own, it became a gift impossible for her not to love. This thing that had hurt her husband so deeply, left him with scars she could never seem to heal, was the same thing that now lent their family so much protection.

But when the sun and moon meet overhead in the sky and neither one will surrender, the dark that falls is nothing like the dark she has come to love. It is bleak and dangerous, and the strange new creatures who fill it leave her feeling violated and unsafe in a place that has always been a sanctuary to their family.

She bolts for Shah just as he returns to her, and she collides with a neck as heavy and warm and safe as it has ever been. “Shah.” She says, and though her voice is less ragged than his, just as her burden is less, the sound of it is still changed by fear and uncertainty.

His shadows rise around them as she buries her delicate body against the larger bulk of his, searching in the dark for his worried face. But there’s pain in her eyes when she shakes her delicate head, pressing her cheek to the heat of his shoulder. “We can’t do both. We can’t protect the ones here with us and also leave to find the others. And you’re needed here.” All truths, even if they wound him.

She pulls away enough to touch her lips to his muzzle, commanding his attention back to her, as though it had ever wandered for even a moment. “You need to stay, but I can go.” She has no idea where she would even begin to look, it’s been so long she last left Taiga. “You and our sons can strengthen the barriers with your magic.” And it’s funny, isn’t it, how their boys always stay and their girls always leave them. “Find Illum and Ether. Phosphor may be nearby too. I’m sure Heartfire will find me.” She isn’t actually all that sure at all.

Ilka

@[Shahrizai]