Word Count→483 :: Foreward dated to Feb. 11th, to give Talitha realistic recuperation time from Inferni Snowstorm plot Feb. 8th, "Like Crazy Russian Trees". During this time, Talitha won't be around Inferni at all.
She had managed to sleep, albeit uneasily, for several hours in the night before. No ghosts came, chased away by the presence of her father in a cave such a short distance from her own. The only trouble she suffered was a severe headache, brought on by a heavy tree that had managed to fall on her only a few days before. Her memory of the incident had returned, but the pain hadn't subsided in any part of her body. Not in her head, and certainly not in the ribs that had splintered under the crushing weight of the vengeful foliage.
As the coy-mutt princess passed over the snow-coated ground of the Halcyon mountains, she realized she should have tried to rest longer. Her head whirled with thoughts lost to her in a fog, of the crackling sound of splintering wood that she should have paid more attention to. The fact was she hadn't, and she had suffered the consequences and was left feeling so ashamed of herself. Weak. Hurt. Not like a de le Poer should have been. She should have been more perceptive.
"God won't show me mercy when I die, not if I can't prove myself," she muttered. Her words were lost on the winds, but made little sense anyways. The God that others trusted wasn't who she referenced. Rather, it was her father. Her Gabriel, the saviour of Inferni and the father she had always idolized. Gabriel was her holy manifestation of the Lord, physical and touchable when the God she followed was not. Her fear was that she had been another disappointment, even if he wouldn't tell her. Oh, how she worried it was so.
Her legs had carried her along the wide, natural path that was laid out before her, covered in the remnants of snow frosted on the ground. She was tired, she was cold, and everything ached in the frigid temperatures. But she wanted time alone, and that was the only place she could get it. Near the old lands, where the smell of ash still haunted her senses. Where the memories of blazing flames found her mind. Where her life started, and where she hoped it could end. Her alpha and omega, her beginning and her death. Where her family was whole, and where she was still so young.
The wind finally persuaded her body to fall, breathless and shivering as she toppled onto the snowy path. It was too much. She should have stayed in her cave, away from the watchful eyes of everyone else, but her common sense had left her and pushed her away from safety. A shadow passed her features as she wondered if she'd die there, in the cold. Where no one could find her until Ezekiel noticed she was gone, leaving only a cold body and remnants of a cheerful princess who had been lost amongst the years.
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