wound relentlessly

KIADA i wish that i could say, i am a light that never goes out. It feels like years since she’s been in this other form. It feels like betrayal any time she dons the skin of her previous companion – of Khairi whom she had lived soul bound to for years before he was ripped from her and she arrived here. But it is necessary, easier to scan the ground from above, to avoid painful interactions and talking mindless chat, as though her heart hadn’t died with Ru’in on the porch of the Rathskeller forever ago. The world feels like it’s mocking, the sunlight and damp ground a bright and brilliant light against the dark that she can feel spreading with every passing day. She’s not sure if she’s ever going to get better. And she’s not sure if she deserves it. Auni joins her, during her hunt. Not nearly as fun as Khairi had been, sitting upon her shoulder with a bloody creature’s leftovers in his beak – the blood dripping in tiny little plinks along her shoulder to run down her chest. Auni is kind, and sweet, and the complete opposite of the brutal ruggedness of Khairi. She can’t tell if she feels relieved that he’s so different or if it seems to hurt more. She thinks she’s getting soft. The Luxere, such bright and brilliant creatures, and for a time she feels bad that he’s bonded to her and not someone more light hearted. Someone not stained and tainted black from her entire life. Kiada finds herself in the Fields, soaring above the ground in her pale yet slightly reddish feathers, her scarlet gaze spotting Auni below as he runs with such a speed to keep up with her. They don’t have a plan with where they’re heading, they’re just going. And it isn’t until Kiada spots a man with arrows who appears to be hunting that she grows concerned for a moment. Auni’s antlers haven’t fully grown in yet, and without the glow of his antlers accompanying them, she’s not certain he might not mistake him for a normal deer. She circles for a moment, commanding Auni to slow down, and as she cascades down to the ground in a flurry of wind and feathers, of sharp beaks and talons, does the Harpy land before Auni and shift into herself. Her fingers tangling into the furs at the base of his neck – as if claiming that he was hers, a solemn kind of darkness crossing her gaze at the thought of possibly losing more than just Ru’in in this world. Still, they remain a ways away from the man, though dead on if he were to turn to the right. He likely heard the trampling of Auni’s hooves on their approach, might have even seen her fall from her vulture form to become a woman standing before him, donning leathers and furs and a dagger or two along her hip (though those were the only visible ones). She didn’t know what to say, and so she simply dipped her head in greeting. Silence the easiest way to not say something stupid – to not bother anyone when they were doing exactly what she was doing. Picking up the pieces from Longnight. but i flicker from time to time.