2 ☬ The wild rose hath scattered...

[litbydark]

Who: Badra Samar and Allumette Honeycutt
Where: The Church of Saint Adama Landama
Warnings: Post-Titan spoilers


[ the journey from vesper bay had been silent, slipping through the aetheric flow to arrive from one place that reeked of the stench of death to another. only this place... was not the one that held those of her companions. that was alright; she could handle that for a while. yet as she materialized and began walking toward the tunnel ramp that would lead her out of the camp, she couldn't help but hear the sobbing that permeated the air around her.

she could not help but find how fitting a location minfilia asked for them to seek shelter; amongst the dead and mourning.

the adventurer silently walked, throwing a cowl over her still blood-caked garments, exiting and walking ever faster toward the building outside camp beyond the many grave markers. maybe it hit completely as she walked amongst the dead and long-since buried, just which emotions she was trying to swallow and now let show. or, maybe it was the priest's concerned gaze and compassion when he saw the evidence of tears she hadn't known were falling down her cheeks.

the wild rose has scattered, and i know not what to do...

what she knew was that night had fallen by the time she had been sitting on a pew bench, silent tears still falling. she knew the fate of those not found in pools of blood - likely taken captive and treated like savage beasts - but what of her brothers and sisters who stood with her against the lord of crags?

it's almost funny... hadn't she run from her homeland so that she would not be simply staying in a cave, waiting to hear of her brothers' and sisters' deaths? ]

Comments

[aheroipray]

[ she'd meant to come straight here, but then she'd seen kha'li's wayward stores and she found herself unable to just set fire to the paintings they had. she had to break the glass herself, had to rip the canvas, and with still-bleeding hands mount cloudline as she raced to eastern thanalan.

perhaps he could feel her distraught state, but he jerked and weaved through monsters precariously, to the point where she wanted to yank on the reins but couldn't--not with shards of glass still in her little hands. she grimaces, wishing she'd remembered to put on her gloves after holding noraxia--the memory bubbled up in her mind and she tried to force stinging tears away.

he ended up bucking her straight onto the stairs of the church, and she cursed hoarsely at him, getting to her feet and wincing as she did so. every shard was lodging deeper into her skin. once she could sit down she'd change to conjurer and heal herself, but for the moment, she just hurried inside, pulling down her baby-blanket shawl and looking around--

spotting badra, with wide, red-rimmed eyes. ]

It's--it's you? Not the desert sun?

[ she stumbles, clad in dust and mud and blood dripping down from gauntlet-less hands, a pigtail undone. ]

[litbydark]

[ she was simply wiping her eyes when she heard a voice curse loudly and the kweh of a chocobo. not just any voice, but a familiar one. perhaps that is why she gripped up her cane so quickly, so tightly as if her knuckles could turn a paler shade of grey even for just one moment. she knew that voice, and she only took a moment to pray to the Keeper that it was not a trick of the desert and her silent grief.

yet there she was, bloodied as much as she, without her gloves but alive all the same.

Allu--

...

do forgive her this brief moment of simple joy, but it's all she can take to not hold onto you while you're injured. instead, she utters an incantation underneath her breath, glass being forced out as a wave of healing magic flows freely from the earth beneath their feet. it must be odd for those in the church, but the amount of damns she gives is in the negatives. ]

Thank Hydaelyn you're safe!

[ she drops her cane with a clatter, bending down so much her knees too hit the ground and at this point. she cares not that this was going to make them both even more bloody. you are getting a hug. ]

[aheroipray]

Ah!

[ she grimaces against the shards that suddenly flick out of her skin, gasping as the heal rushes over her and she shivers before badra envelops her in a warm hug. oh, warmth. she missed it. tears bubbling over again, she wrapped her arms around the duskwright's neck and sniffed into her shoulder, trying hard not to let them free just yet. ]

I--I had thought...

Thank Hydaelyn you're safe, Badra. Y-you saw it, as well?

[litbydark]

[ she missed warmth too, which was odd, how much she realized she liked it all of a sudden. warmth meant life, that it was real and no trick of the light. they were alive...

but it also meant that the scene that she'd found was not a dream, that it had actually happened. it was like something caught in her throat. as if even she did not want to admit just how soft she was. yet this was a farce she could not keep, not in the presence of those trusted few. ]

...I have.

[ yet there is something else in there aside from sadness in her tone - white-hot anger. not at the small one, but at the empire...and herself. ]

May they find respite in Thal's realm.

[aheroipray]

[ allumette's anger will rise like a phoenix out of the watered-down ashes settling at her feet. she hiccups into badra's shoulder, before finally bringing her face to the side, her cheek cradled against her good friend's chest. she tries, desperately, to calm her breathing. ]

Minfilia--and the others... I--I don't know how I would ever find my way.

[litbydark]

[ she nods solemnly, knowing what she meant. yet at the same time, she finds herself unable to shed another tear. ]

Nor would I. [ a group that had actually believed in her, like her young friend here... that had meant the most to her. ripping that away from her for simply helping slay two primals-? ]

...but I'm almost certain- we will see them again.

[ because you can bet that unless they come up with a more tactical approach she WILL blast down the doors of wherever they were taken to with a fire spell ]

[aheroipray]

How can you be?

[ one would be hard-pressed to call allumette a quitter, but the echo they'd seen wrecked her insides with guilt and terror. ]

What if we simply are taken, with them?

[summonthewill]

[ there are many ways badra could answer that. she could reply in her usual sarcasm, could say that she would sit there and wait for her father to walk through the bedroom door during a visit again only for her mother or grandmother to enter instead. hells, she could even be more flippant about it in an effort to conceal her own pain.

but she doesn't.

instead she remains silent for now, holding her little friend tight. only after a long pause does she draw upon enough courage to respond. ]

Because they still draw breath.

[ there is a lot of depth to the pain she tries to shield from her friend. though perhaps it is but a childish, vain hope. a vain hope that she chooses to hold onto that the Spinner would lead their paths to cross once more. mayhap in the Keeper's time, but for now... they must give pause for mourning. ]

They have yet to find us, and our sylvan friend wished for us to save them, did she not?