06-26-2022, 09:02 PM
As the sun set, Maral departed the crown - and each of her muscles screamed in protest.
She felt them, every one, even those in places where she hadn't known them to be. They ached and burned and brought tears to her eyes with every forced step. The shadow pressed on, however, gritting her teeth through pain and sorrow alike.
There was a comfort among the flowing, ethereal branches of their nearby wisteria forest. Brightly coloured petals caressed Maral's back, ruffled and unkempt still from the fight with her sister, as she limped pitifully between the branches. She breathed deep and swore she could still taste Spring in the air, muddied by clotted blood that clung to her nasal passage.
The metallic tang of it made her feel woozy, and the young Déorwine swayed. She pressed a flank to the trunk of a proud tree and sank her weight against it with a breathy sigh, one that ended with sputtering coughs. Feeling that she might heave, Maral dropped to her haunches and hunched over, but the only relief she received was the loosening of blackened snot from her nose that she huffed onto the ground at her paws.
It was then that she noticed: the two alabaster toes of her offending paw had been made crimson by blood. She wondered, bitterly, if it belonged to herself or Edith - and hoped for it to be the latter's.
The reminder of her sister's face induced a fury within Maral again, one that did not simmer as it had done for months. Instead it came in the form of something most unexpected, for she squeezed her eyes shut and jerked her head back to scream into the void. Her voice echoed through the woods, and she carried on for as long as her lungs were capable. She cried out for all that she was and all she wished she could be, for the misery that was her sorry life, for the fact that she'd been unable to choose her family.
Maral, battered and exhausted, slumped forward into the dirt to press her wounded muzzle between bloodied limbs. Her body trembled beneath the weight of all the trauma her shoulders bore for far too long and she wept for perhaps the first time since infancy.
The High Elk would never forgive her for the assault on Edith, she knew. She would be the talk of Elkshire: Maral, a sinner, just as the prophecy foretold. He who wore a crown of a thousand horns undoubtedly frowned upon her that night, as she curled close to herself so she could try to self-soothe.
If there could ever be some higher power to take her back in time, back to that very moment where she could reconsider her actions, Maral felt in her bones that she would not hesitate to do it again.
If anything, she'd have spilled more blood - and thus she was as cursed as the white of her breast.
the staff team luvs u
She felt them, every one, even those in places where she hadn't known them to be. They ached and burned and brought tears to her eyes with every forced step. The shadow pressed on, however, gritting her teeth through pain and sorrow alike.
There was a comfort among the flowing, ethereal branches of their nearby wisteria forest. Brightly coloured petals caressed Maral's back, ruffled and unkempt still from the fight with her sister, as she limped pitifully between the branches. She breathed deep and swore she could still taste Spring in the air, muddied by clotted blood that clung to her nasal passage.
The metallic tang of it made her feel woozy, and the young Déorwine swayed. She pressed a flank to the trunk of a proud tree and sank her weight against it with a breathy sigh, one that ended with sputtering coughs. Feeling that she might heave, Maral dropped to her haunches and hunched over, but the only relief she received was the loosening of blackened snot from her nose that she huffed onto the ground at her paws.
It was then that she noticed: the two alabaster toes of her offending paw had been made crimson by blood. She wondered, bitterly, if it belonged to herself or Edith - and hoped for it to be the latter's.
The reminder of her sister's face induced a fury within Maral again, one that did not simmer as it had done for months. Instead it came in the form of something most unexpected, for she squeezed her eyes shut and jerked her head back to scream into the void. Her voice echoed through the woods, and she carried on for as long as her lungs were capable. She cried out for all that she was and all she wished she could be, for the misery that was her sorry life, for the fact that she'd been unable to choose her family.
Maral, battered and exhausted, slumped forward into the dirt to press her wounded muzzle between bloodied limbs. Her body trembled beneath the weight of all the trauma her shoulders bore for far too long and she wept for perhaps the first time since infancy.
The High Elk would never forgive her for the assault on Edith, she knew. She would be the talk of Elkshire: Maral, a sinner, just as the prophecy foretold. He who wore a crown of a thousand horns undoubtedly frowned upon her that night, as she curled close to herself so she could try to self-soothe.
If there could ever be some higher power to take her back in time, back to that very moment where she could reconsider her actions, Maral felt in her bones that she would not hesitate to do it again.
If anything, she'd have spilled more blood - and thus she was as cursed as the white of her breast.
the staff team luvs u
