[KQ] brother, where art thou

i am afraid that if i open myself

i will not stop pouring

This isn’t at all how she expects it. But would she have it any other way? She’s falling, the pain vibrating through her wing, pulsing and throbbing as she goes down and down. She can see Amalia, however briefly, try to reach for her, she can see the work that Hotaru does with Tanau. But it fails, her rescue fails, and down the Harpy goes. The heat grows, her heart thundering in her chest. She’d always imagined she’d die in some form of battle, some way of getting too close or making the wrong move. She never imagined to die of old age.

But then she thinks of Chulane, how that was exactly what she had promised to him. A smooth sailing kind of life, wasn’t she supposed to go camping in Torchline with him? She won’t, now, not as she descends into the lava. She only hopes he understands. She hopes he knows she loved him, even if their time together had been short. She hopes Amalia and Deimos care for him with the tragedy that’s about to come. That they might make it easier for him.

Maybe he can take a few of the feathers she’s sure she's left behind and sprinkle them along the edges of Halo, to be back with the snows like she was with the Basin. She hopes Deimos doesn’t take it too hard, though she knows that he will. She hopes that Hotaru won’t take it upon herself for the failure of her not thinking further ahead.

Lastly, she hopes that Amalia doesn’t blame herself for it. Because she’d tried to save her. It just wasn’t meant to be.

And then, there, the lava she can feel as it engulfs her — a hot sweet embrace for a girl born wreathed in flame, born in the icy snows of a mountain, a flame snuffed out too soon, but snuffed out all the same.

why do i fear becoming a river?

what mountain gave me such shame?

KIADA