(o) Claustrophobia

MAEA

Beneath the surface of smiles and compliance, beneath the ever swirling torrent of thoughts and memories - beneath even the grief that had become like a cornerstone of her being and saturated through everything she did - ran an undercurrent of fear in the young woman known as Maea Valair. It laced through her thoughts and actions much in the same way as the sorrow and affected the decisions she made, from the near obsessive need to stay out of her own head to the occasional excursions she made into the Wilds. Away from the Hollowed Grounds, to be precise. Far too many years behind that barrier had left wounds in her soul, and they sometimes startled even her with how deep they ran.

A creature without a need to breathe shouldn't really fear suffocation, yet that was exactly the sensation that came over her on some days. No matter that the sky was high and blue or that the world had become draped in white from horizon to horizon; the only thing that soothed that itch deep in her soul was to run as far away from her old prison as she could come. But perhaps this had not been the most optimal of choices to linger in. As she slowed her steps from a flat out sprint that strained her body and endurance to the limits, into a pensive meandering, Maea got the feeling that the rolling hills and the tombs she found were not very welcoming of visitors. Her brother's recount of his adventure within one of the tombs made her stay well clear of the doors and braved the high arching mounds instead. Roving from one to another, she made a point of cresting each peak and look around, surveying the landscape as if it would be possible to memorize it.

It came as a complete surprise to her when, upon mounting a smaller hillock, the ground suddenly gave way beneath her feet. In a rumble of collapsing stones Maea tumbled into the dark burial chamber beneath, showered by a veritable landslide of soil and snow that all but buried her in a heavy blanket. Coughing and spitting to clear her orifices, she swore softly to herself upon noticing that she was quite stuck.

Isn't it lovely, all alone?
Heart made of glass, my mind of stone

Camilla

It wasn't often that Camilla left the confines of the Greatwood. The trees her home and sanctuary. Even with the grumpiness of the Fae, the Abandoned found that she was rather content there, filling her days with work and trade. Her nights spent mostly alone. It was a simple life. A life that didn't call for much travelling, but there were times that she desired to get out. Despite being capable of creating almost anything she would need for her craft, the woman still liked to gather certain materials on her own, finding it connected her with the things she was creating. It tied her to the process more thoroughly.

Which was why she was out today. The idea of finding new flowers to make dyes from taking root in her mind and drawing her out of the Greatwood, leaving her to wander, collecting various plant life into her Bag of Holding while making note of the location she took each from.

It was what she was doing when she heard the commotion through a thicket of trees, brow furrowing as the sound of cursing cut through the quiet of the wilderness, birds having gone silent as they waited for whatever danger they perceived to pass. She stands, closing her book and tucking it away, carefully picking her way through the brush towards where the sound came from. The hole in the ground isn't uncommon, but she's careful of how far she leans to look, already preparing her magic to catch her should she slip. What she isn't expecting is a pale face and a white shock of hair to be looking up at her from inside. "Are you alright?"

There I was again tonight
Forcing laughter, faking smiles

MAEA

Darkness. Constricting, suffocating darkness pressed in on her from all sides. She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. For a second long as a life age Maea found her back beneath the churning ice of the ocean, swallowed into a cage of bone. Jostled. Dying. Fighting to retain some semblance of clarity and calm within the rising panic. She would die here. And no one would come to save her.

Are you alright?

The voice cut through the vision, and light flooded back into the world. New eyes blinked and remembered that shadows posed no threat to her, just as rock and snow could not confine her. She needed no breath, but sucked one in anyway just to remind herself that it was possible, before activating her upgrade and vanished -

- only to reappear next to a vibrantly beautiful woman on the mound above. Maea intended to land on her feet, but her mind still reeled from the flashback, and her knees buckled beneath her. Only as she clasped trembling arms about herself did she realize that the coat she wore - the coat she had lived in for two years now, through fire, water, desert and swamps, battle and sleep and returning sanity - had finally been defeated. A sleeve had ruptured at its seam in her struggle, and a long tear down the back must have been ripped open in the fall. Another shudder wrecked the girl's slender frame, easily passed for shivering in the cold.

"I... yes. Thank you, for calling out," she sighed, the forced breaths she kept drawing fogging in the frigid air. "That was... unexpected." The fall, the panic - all of it, really. And the coat... it was ridiculous, but Maea actually mourned it.

Gazing up at the woman, as she made an attempt to stand, the moon-haired girl blinked at her. "You are a long way from... anything," she noted, as if she too wasn't in the middle of nowhere.

Isn't it lovely, all alone?
Heart made of glass, my mind of stone