dying in slow motion

Eriadne    It had been a long shift skirting among the border of Sidhe village. Leafchange had never been her favorite season, though the heat was more bearable while wearing leather armor than it had been in Longheat, it had yet to best Deepfrost. Beneath the shade of the canopy, even as it thinned with the deciduous taking their leave for the year, the sun still warms her beneath her armor to the point of sweat beading across her brow. No amount of rose dust was enough to offset the smell of sweat and dirt when she finally landed upon the entrance to the Undercroft, reaching out manicured, but broken, nails against the great oak that housed their place of knowledge, Eriadne gives herself a moment to rest her wings after the long flight around the Greatwood.    With a shake of her head she lets the braids piled atop her head cascade down her shoulders after releasing the pins holding them in place. The sweat sticking to the back of her neck craved the shadows of the Undercroft as she took her first steps under the roots. While she loves her job- being able to protect her homeland while learning more about the blighters, as terrible as they may be was something she wouldn’t trade anything for -moments of reprieve to seek out her sister were necessary to keep her peace of mind after startling one too many unauthorized squirrel nesting places along their border and taking a few too many acorns to the breastplate. Perhaps the Blight was irritating them as well, just as it was a thorn in the fae’s side.    It was a hunch in regards to Nephele’s whereabouts, but when had she ever been wrong when it came to her younger sister? Drawn to knowledge just as Eriadne was drawn to the blade, the two couldn’t have developed more separate paths inside the little village they had called home for the past half-century. Eriadne pauses at the base of the stairs, to the true entrance of what the Undercroft holds, and can only shake her head when she sees her sister hunched over a book. Though she never spoke it aloud, who else would she trust to patch up her wounds after a sparring session, or on the off chance of battle gone wrong?       Nobody.      ”Don’t your eyes tire by candlelight at this hour, Neph?” Eriadne’s lips are quirked in a smile as she sits beside her sister, wrapping her fingers around the edge of the book and pulling it from her without hesitation. Though she skims the page, the world of flora and fauna had never been her jurisdiction, and the terminology is far beyond her wheelhouse. Only now, when she had to report abnormal signs of the blight, did she truly notice the beauty of the Greatwood around them.    ”You’re going to hurt yourself faster than the Blight spending all of your time down here.”