Ciri
Seasons had passed since the portal had spit her back out on Hyaline’s shores and she thinks she’s done an admiral job in trying to adapt back to the ways of Beqanna. Although memories still lurk around every corner (some haunt her more than others), the pain that comes with them is starting to ease. Just a little. It would be a lie to say she wasn’t lonely, she was. It was hard to face this world alone and even harder for a fallen star. The small balls of light that glitter and twinkle around her still offer a source of comfort but it’s not the same as the warmth she had once felt curled against the smooth scales of Amet. The laughter she had shared with Castile. The mothering of Jah-Lilah.
The Meadow still offers some of the best star gazing so she still finds herself here often enough on cool spring nights, her swirling silver gaze turned to the celestial world above. Wondering if perhaps the reason for her existence on this mortal plane was coming to a close. She thinks back on the worlds she had seen before as she jumped from portal to portal, of the creatures and horses she had come to know, of the losses she had endured. It was heavy stuff for a simple star turned mortal. Enough to make her head foggy until she curled up in the grasses beneath the star dusted heavens, falling asleep in the silvery caress of their light.
The sun is pale but bright as it starts to rise from its mountain cradle and she wakes with the dawn, yawning and stretching leisurely. The heavy sound of wings makes her turn her sluggish swirls upwards and what she sees wipes all traces of sleep from her system. A dragon, dark and ominous, passes overhead on huge leathery wings, blotting out the smears of pink and gold light as it quietly cuts through the atmosphere. Her heart is suddenly in her throat and her lungs swell with the sharp inhale she takes. It’s not fear that freezes her, not the normal kind of fear that most would have seeing a mythical predator swooping in from the horizon anyways. She had never gotten to see Castile shift but she knew he could. Could this be him, the dragon of what-ifs from her teenage years?
The beast moves away from her but she starts to trail it, not really thinking about just how dangerous that might be. Although she had been apprehensive in Hyaline regarding the lake’s resident kelpie, she was normally not one to cower in fright in the face of a threat. Hyaline held a different kind of opponent, filled with recollections of an emotional pain that hurt worse than any scar on her body ever had.
Sometimes memories are scarier than monsters.
By the time its claws are sinking into the earth she is trotting over the hill between them, just in time to see the reptile shift into a more familiar shape. A dark stallion stands out in the middle of the meadow and the breath she had been holding slowly releases, shaky and tight. It’s not him. It’s not Castile. She should go, she thinks. She should leave. Her hooves start moving with a mind of their own in the opposite direction. As if the ancient star of her soul cannot help itself, drawn to another ancient being before her. It had been said before and would be said again, Ciri had always been drawn to dragons.
The sun had come up enough for the stars covering her to start to dim, soaking in the sunlight greedily so they could shine bright for this evening’s performance. As she closes the distance, he watches his head lower as his whiskered muzzle pushes through the tender shoots of spring blades, ripping at the grass without much thought. Her metallic gaze sweeps over him with interest, looking for any familiar features in the dragonborn of the ones she had known before. Her heart flutters uncertainly as she lingers on the carved muscles of his chest, on the hardened planes of his face, the long tangled strands of onyx hair that lay loosely over a thick neck. The swirls of her eyes seem to move faster as he takes notice of her, realizing with a start that his eyes somewhat match her own. That her stars would look eerily bright against the night canvas of his black skin.
“Hi.” She finally manages to say with a small smile on soft lips, suddenly incredibly insecure of the thousands of scars that were lashed into her own smoky skin. Feeling strangely raw and vulnerable as she stands before the stranger.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
@[Lior] <3