it's too much [open!]

It had been a tumultuous year or so – barreling through world after world, losing a bit and piece of herself in every single place. She thought she was losing her mind. Slip, slip, slip. One after another, again and again, frustration sparking from within her – the darkness burning deeper and deeper until it finally took hold of her heart in its fist. It gripped tighter and tighter still until her vision was blinded, red by the varying lights, by the world that she had lost her belongings – that beautiful necklace of her brother’s companion with her mother’s and father’s; her winged armor, the one that pierced her skin whenever she used it. Her back was littered with the remnants of the scars, pale pricks along her shoulders remained as well – even if the other half of her soul hadn’t. She had lost him somewhere, between the Rift and the many worlds she traveled. She had landed in one, briefly, enough to realize that Khairi wasn’t anywhere she could find. Her heart broke, she screamed at the skies, tear stains seemed permanent upon her cheeks. She had searched and searched, failing in her attempts to do so, until she fell through that world too. Perhaps she had left him here – perhaps she’d never see him again. The thought was enough to make her sick, gladly choosing death over losing another thing held so dear to her. It started with Ru’in. Then Kianzo. Her father, her siblings, Rixen. Finally Khairi. She had nothing more to give except her own life, and at this point she wasn’t even certain she should keep that for all her shortcomings. Her hands clenched tightly, face set in a frown as her icy gaze scanned the temple she had somehow stumbled into – shifting from her bronze hues and fire into this strange kind of creature. It was an easy shift, one that melded surprisingly well for her, and she soon found that she didn’t hate hands. They were useful, in fact, easy to hold a blade – to make and create. But it was the absence of her fire that had her grimacing. She had reached for it, throwing herself at that well of magic she had carried since she was born. Over and over again until finally, something happened. Though it wasn’t the something she expected. She had expected flame to ball in her fists, to burn this new strange place to the ground – yet when the harpy opened her eyes she noticed she was quite a bit shorter. She pulled her hands in front of her face, tilting her head to get a better look when she noticed they were wings, and sickeningly familiar ones at that. “Is this some kind of SICK joke?” She attempted to scream at the inner walls of the temple, but instead with the clack of her sharp beak, a guttural howl erupted in the halls. KiadA you think i'll be the dark sky so you can be the star? i'll swallow you whole.

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