[/html]omg omgomgomgomg! Also, wow, I make lots of typos at 5am. *fixes*
She drifted in and out of her exhausted, feverish stupor. After a stretch of nervous silence, she thought of calling again -- it was the middle of the night, and the territory was vast; it was not unlikely that no one heard -- but she could not be sure how much time had passed, and her bitter pride bubbled up again, unwilling to return so easily to the role of a needy child. Cassandra had been sickly as a pup, physically and emotionally weak. Her father and sister had always been protective, and she had let them be, had welcomed it. But the security she'd once found curled up between them had betrayed her with its absence, and the compulsion to make away again into the night grabbed at her.
The pallid woman had been wounded before, after all, had survived on her own for half her life now. Only fools turned down what was offered freely, but she had played the fool before and lived still. There would always be chance and risk, so what difference did it make? There was even risk here, standing on Inferni's borders, knowing her sister was somewhere within. Who was Myrika now? Cassandra had changed as much as she could possibly have changed since last they met, so it was only fair to think the same for Myrika, was it not? After all, she was staying in Inferni. They'd lived and grown apart.
Soir shook her head gently at the sound of hoofbeats, coming steadily from somewhere just out of view. The palomino shifted her weight back and forth between her feet, uneasy. Slowly and with an uncomfortable effort, Cassandra dismounted. Holding tightly to the mane and saddle, she slid down one side of her horse to land heavily on her good foot. Her shoulder groaned, but the pain had become more distant. There were too many small aches for any one thing to hold her attention exclusively. Besides, now there was a rider on the horizon, a little silhouette fast approaching.
Cassandra stood beside her horse, arm still holding onto a tuft of white mane for support. Her dirty cloak was draped over Soir's hindquarters and rustled now and again when the summer breeze came. Ordinarily, even with just the stars in the sky, her colorless fur would have glowed with an eerie transparency. It was a magnificance she had never asked for and often wished away, but it was still how she would have preferred to look when meeting her sister again after so many months. Instead, Cassandra's base coat looked a dirty grey, most of the lower half of her body was tinged in brown-red, as well as the entirety of her left arm and from the elbow down on her right. The larger chunks of mud on her body had dried and fallen off, but her feet were still heavy with the extra weight. Her hair was horrid mess of blood clots and matted tangles, all brown and grey and even black with grim.
The rain had washed away little, it seemed. And all of a sudden, a terrible sense of shame and guilt came over her. It didn't matter what the circumstances were or what had or hadn't changed. She could pretend all she wanted, but she knew she was there because she was weak and her sister was strong and she desperately needed someone to trust.
| Messages In This Thread |