Amalia
the shield of safrin
"Mort... fuck, what am I doing?"
The Amalia who stands before the shrine is not the Amalia of years before. Even months, weeks, days- she is different, harder now, the ever-present cracks in her damaged veneer no longer hidden beneath good intention and hope.
The Amalia who stands before the shrine is whole in body, but her spirit is broken beyond repair, a piece of it gone forever.
"I don't know if you can hear me. Or if you're listening. If you care." In her arms, a small bundle wrapped in a thick black cloth, clutched against her chest: the only thing she has left of him, and even that is nothing. Just an empty husk of metal, no soul beneath the shiny veneer. A ring pulled from his home, silver with an ornate skull.
Kneeling, she sets it on the ground.
Is she crying? No- she hasn't cried yet, not since that moment (how long ago? How recent? It can't have been more than a few hours, but it feels like days and like moments and like if she stops too long to think about it it will still be happening now). Is it too late to do something? Too soon? She can feel the fallen leaves of trees pressing into her knees, the hard earth digging against her toes. "I want... I want to know that their souls are safe, I guess. And that if there was a way to get them back... I would do it. To fix my mistakes."
The Amalia who stands before the shrine is not the Amalia of years before. Even months, weeks, days- she is different, harder now, the ever-present cracks in her damaged veneer no longer hidden beneath good intention and hope.
The Amalia who stands before the shrine is whole in body, but her spirit is broken beyond repair, a piece of it gone forever.
"I don't know if you can hear me. Or if you're listening. If you care." In her arms, a small bundle wrapped in a thick black cloth, clutched against her chest: the only thing she has left of him, and even that is nothing. Just an empty husk of metal, no soul beneath the shiny veneer. A ring pulled from his home, silver with an ornate skull.
Kneeling, she sets it on the ground.
Is she crying? No- she hasn't cried yet, not since that moment (how long ago? How recent? It can't have been more than a few hours, but it feels like days and like moments and like if she stops too long to think about it it will still be happening now). Is it too late to do something? Too soon? She can feel the fallen leaves of trees pressing into her knees, the hard earth digging against her toes. "I want... I want to know that their souls are safe, I guess. And that if there was a way to get them back... I would do it. To fix my mistakes."
she is calm in the storm
and anxious in the quiet
and anxious in the quiet
