Heartlights

I am my mother's child, I'll love you till my breathing stops
I'll love you till you call the cops on me

To be the best - the strongest, the mightiest, the most monstrous – had always been the epitome of her goals and dreams, stemming from the day she was old enough to go out venturing on her own. But she’d never had it – couldn’t clench the notion, couldn’t grasp the sensation, too young, too inept, too idiotic, too impulsive, a whole range of excuses and tribulations impeding her reckless ambitions. Eventually, it came to a head in the Rift, when they were plunged down into hell and there was no one there to guard them except one another – makeshift family units combining forces, blood on her hands, her teeth, her fingers, incapable of stopping herself, barreling onward and onward and onward until coasts appeared clear. And then they weren’t. It severed down the tracings of her scar, where it burned and chiseled, where it fanned old flames, wilted, decayed, something swallowed and consumed along her spine, bewitching her motions into feral hazes. She listened quietly, to the hushed overtures, to the way they crept and kept their furtive balances just slightly in check, afraid and wary, waiting for another ax to fall. The youth didn’t recognize either of his names, except Isla the unicorn (one and the same?), or the series of numbers, committing the sanctions of their memories to hers. Edrei was something recognized and known – blistering, emboldened infernos, the shock of her demise a swift, brutal thing; if she couldn’t protect herself, then who could? Her voice was layered and lacquered again, sticking to her tongue, to her ivories. “I thought it would be easier in Caido,” naïve, maybe, but she’d left Stygian voids and abysses, had seen the sun here, had carved friends out of acquaintances. “But there’s still so much death.” Her head shook and her eyes didn’t glance his way, mesmerized by the flicking lanterns, by the coiled embers, by the disastrous wake they continued to find themselves within. M e l i t a But in our darkest hours, I stumbled on a secret power I'll find a way to be without you, babe