(Untitled)
It is not so much a desert of sand, this time.
Mostly there is ice. And rock. And water.
If he were more mad it would almost be like home. Parts of it.
He is very hungry.
But that is not so much something he is unused to.
Mostly there is ice. And rock. And water.
If he were more mad it would almost be like home. Parts of it.
He is very hungry.
But that is not so much something he is unused to.
In a way.
A dusting of snow swirls upward in the middle of the barren space, shaping itself into the ghost of a figure.
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The ragged tails of his coat flare in the sudden upsurge of wind.
Somewhere in the distance ice cracks loudly, echoing against the sky.
Even if that should not be possible.
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The soft light voice is not as musical as it once was, oh no, but it is unmistakable despite that.
She wears no white cloak now, not any more; her thin frame is shrouded in dusty gray, and her face is veiled in thin grey gauze.
Her eyes alone remain the same, and the sharpness in the bright ice blue of her glance is cold and hard.
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There's a snap to the wind, cold and cutting.
Out on the water the waves churn a little more wildly.
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She glances around, then seats herself on a rock.
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"That is not so much a surprise."
Has she, after all, forgotten who she's talking to?
This, perhaps, is also a thing.
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Blodwen trails off there, watching him.
"So far you are from everything, Raven! My goodness. Such an effort it was, to find you, and is it that you are not even curious why I have come?"
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"Likely it is not to die. So."
The tide is receding.
This is probably not a good sign.
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Something harsh edges her words to the sharpness of a blade.
"Over and done, the time for that wishing is. You may content yourself that I screamed and longed for it at all, but never again."
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"That, I think, was never so much the point."
The tide is still going out.
And out.
"And still you will not go on forever. Even like this, yes?"
Even now things are always changing.
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"As for the rest, we will see, now."
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And then he is in her space, arms wrapped tight around her, face close enough to kiss.
And the roar of the water swells up over everything in a towering wave that crashes down on them both.
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--and where she touches him, clay begins first to crack and then to crumble.
The water falls on them both, and with a high-pitched, chilling shriek of triumphant laughter and fear, she shoves away from Raven's now-loosened grip and into the torrent.
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Were he, perhaps, not merely closing his eyes and letting go.
He is, after all, very tired.
(And faintly, ever so faintly below and within the roar of the waves -- is that laughter?)
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The destructive force of her newly-acquired power tears through him like a scourge, transforming strong clay into corroded bits.
As it does, the grip of the curse is frayed and weakened as well. The blood flowing from the wound in Raven's body first slows, then shifts, becoming sand.
The wave recedes, leaving a stick-like figure tossed up against a rock -- but oh, how Blodwen is smiling as she gets to her feet. A flick of her fingers, and she is shrouded in her illusion once more, and laughing.
"A truer test of my strength I could not have found had I sought for a thousand years. So predictable it was, that this dance would be."
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A heat haze slides across the ground, distorting the air around it.
Distorting the ground under it, sand shifting to glass shifting to flowers and back to sand almost faster than the eye can stand.
It casts a winged shadow.
Lurking at the fringes of Blodwen's mind, Raven-that-was (Raven-that-is) is still laughing, bright and wild and -- warm?
There's a rush as that heat-haze climbs higher, swirling around her ankles, then her knees, heat brushing against her face, against her mouth.
*!*
And then the haze and the power and the laughter are gone.
The sun is beating down on the snow, bright and clear despite the cold.
And Blodwen is dressed in brilliant scarlet, clothes clean and pressed and impeccable.
Call it a gift, repaid in kind.
But not, perhaps, repaid in full.
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