sound the bugle now

amalia chandrakant there is a color that shines through your skin Like the moon on the wind Beneath the being's onslaught, Amalia quails, drawing further and further into the dark recesses of her mind, the insecurities she'd only recently managed to escape. Selfish, weak, mortal. Every word hurts worse than the last, and every word is true. Who is she, to have tried to be more, to think she could champion immortal causes and higher purpose? She is nothing, a child, a daughter of dust and ash born into darkness and destined to die in dust, forgotten and alone. Frey stands but Amalia remains, staring hollowly at the ground. It's probably already too late- and she flinches again at the casual tone, the easy way the deity throws her failure in her face. The innuendo flies over her head: once she might have blushed at the joke, but now her face is hot with shame. Still, she glances up as she is told not to worry, hopeless and defeated, already at her lowest point- -except she isn't, and there's more, and somehow it is much, much worse. Because now it isn't just this error, but everything- everything the girl has accomplished, everything she has ever done, thrown in the mud and crushed beneath their heel, ground down to nothing but meaningless ash. She remembers the rush of pride at the knowledge from Safrin, the way Ludo's task brought her back from the edge of despair. Had she been wasting time, pursuing these accomplishments while the world crumbled around her? Had she truly hidden her head in the sand, contributed and made it worse? She thinks of Safrin's starlit face, of the way her fingers felt upon her skin. Of the souls she and Jigano had saved from Long Night. Of the Spark Bird, radiant upon its perch. "No," the baker grinds out between her teeth, hands clenching into fists, as something vibrant breaks through her pain. the night is full on behalf or your evaded mask And the rings round your eyes

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