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Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 8:38 am
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It took a long time for Alva to gather himself enough to dare to go out. His entire life had been held together by threads of family and tradition and in one catastrophic sweep, all those threads have been cut. He felt like a marionette, hardly able to stand on his own two feet. He'd lost everything, everything he once held dear, it was unbearable.
And the most agonising wound of all he felt was the very real possibility that he had lost his other half. His twin, the other side of who he was. They'd been visiting other lairs when the catastrophe struck and he'd heard nothing from her. He'd heard that some of the lairs had also fallen prey to misfortune and the more time he spent on the reserve the deeper rooted that dread, that terror of loss became.
It was this desire to know for certain what had happened, if he'd failed to protect her with finality, if he was alone forever that sent him out seeking. He didn't know what he hoped to find or how he would really deal if she was gone. It had been hard enough to cope separated from her in the first place, the idea of this being a permanent state of affairs was an abyss of horror.
He said nothing to anyone he passed along the way, simply walked through the crowd, another distraught figure scrabbling for threads of meaning.
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Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 7:26 am
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Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 9:54 am
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A glimpse of violet through the crowd, he didn't hope it was her. He didn't hope for anything in this world, hope was illogical, it went against the cold functioning blankness that was his existence now. Strings cut, lifeline missing, when you danced over the abyss everything looked like a way out.
He moved closer, features creasing in a frown.
And then a moment of clarity as he saw it was her.
He closed the distance between them at a run, a rare lapse in control for him, shouldering aside one of the callous horsemen who didn't realise the delicate and wonderful creature they were harassing. He laid hands on her shoulders, slipping down to hug her.
"Sister. I thought you were dead." The words were flat and emotionless as so many of his words were, but their meaning was not. He had found the strings that held him up, he had found his other half. The disaster was lessened, he could breathe.
He buried his face against her shoulder. She smelled like he remembered.
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Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 10:13 am
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Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 10:19 am
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He felt like he'd lost her the day their parents had gently but firmly explained to him that sometimes growing up meant a separation. She was no longer a girl but a lady, one day she would have to marry and he would have to carry on the family name. He didn't know what any of it meant, it hadn't seemed logical. She was his sister, they relied on one another, splitting them up seemed needless and a step in the wrong direction. He'd resented it but he'd taken the indignity with the quiet grudging hollowness he'd learned to meet all slights with.
But here and now he had her back.
And in a dark and violent thought, he realised that he would gladly sacrifice their world, their culture, everything he had, all over again just to have her.
He hugged her tightly, feeling as if somehow he drew his very emotions from her, feeling as if he could breathe again after being hollow, a statue, for much too long.
"Never leave again." It was a plea, an order, a prediction.
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Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 10:27 am
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Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 10:32 am
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"I've found no one else." he stated matter-of-factly.
No one else mattered.
Family was an unfortunate loss, their parents hadn't been bad people, their family had done its best to climb the endless ladder of rank, hindered forever by the fact their blood was not of the direct imperial line. But now even that imperial line was ashes. Sometimes you had to incinerate the world he reasoned, to build a new one.
"They may yet live, patience is all that matters." he stoked her hair dotingly, oh how he'd missed her, her tears a refreshing breeze to him.
He was certain of one thing however, no matter who survived, they would never take her from him again, it was a sentence to a life of living death.
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Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 10:38 am
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Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 10:47 am
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Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 11:04 am
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Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 11:21 am
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"We can make it exactly as we wish, There is no one telling us what to do, how to act, what we should or shouldn't believe. There is no more weight of family expectations, only what we, ourselves choose to create or desire." It was terrifying and liberating all at once.
"The people here are not scary. They are like us, unsettled from their lands and traditions, adrift in this place. They are no more scary than you and I, less so in fact as many of them have no one else for strength or comfort." he felt so alive with her there, it was hard to be sad, even at the losses.
"No harm will come to you while I am here."
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Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 11:28 am
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Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 11:34 am
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Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 11:37 am
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Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 11:53 am
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