flaw in my code

KIADA

i dream of gods and monsters

It surprises her that the Fae is so willing to tolerate her, but she’s sure deep down it’s because of Auni. It certainly can’t be her, a dull, scarred, warrior of a woman. But the words the Fae gives her causes her to lift her pale head to her, icy gaze scanning her face with a soft smile. She doesn’t know why it helps, but it does, and she finds that small amount of regret that burns within her at the mention in a roundabout way that the creature probably enjoyed it.

Her eyes drift once more as Nephele asks her what she studies now, and she has to pause to think. She doesn’t know? Nothing? It can’t be nothing, but life hadn’t afforded her much of a chance to decide what to do – it has always been what she was needed to be. A warrior by necessity, never by choice. She recalls her father in that moment, scarred and strong, and knows somewhere within her that she never wanted to follow the Elephant’s footsteps.

Yet here she is.

And her mother, lithe and agile, small in comparison to the mountain of her father – scarred too, but a warrior of a different sort. A danger with her tongue, with the way she could infiltrate. And she had never wanted that too. And when she was younger, she had half a mind to learn how to make poisons, to find a way to destroy and create without a hand connected to the weapon. But instead, she had been ripped from world to world to world. Down, down, down. Fighting and fighting, protecting and destroying, rebuilding and embarking.

“I am a warrior, of sorts now.” She replies almost quietly, lost in her thoughts as she tilts her head and stares off in the distance. “The worlds I came from were destroyed over and over again. I became what was needed of me, to protect and fight for what was right.” She offers, wondering if Kianzo is up there somewhere laughing at her, telling her she has grown soft.

She has grown soft.

But the feathers sprout on her arm, and her icy gaze returns to the Fae with a curious eye as she asks if it would hurt. Scarred shoulders rise and fall in a shrug, yet a smile graces her face. “I’m not sure. I’m willing to try.” She admits, remaining in the same place and letting the Fae come take what she wants – the feathers sprouting further until her arms are covered with the long tangles and her fingers shift into her fore feathers.

and of the man who knew i was both