Ophelia, he says to me.

(--from miles and miles away--)

And—get this—I actually didn’t know who he was talking about at first.

You flailed in the air, lost and disoriented for some moments—the feeling of my shattered psyche scraping against the edges of your mind. As soon as you got control of your wings and your spinning head you rocketed for me, tiny wings beating furiously for me; and when you came upon me there was a little zipsnck! and a burst of lighting and when you landed on me, tangling yourself in my mane, you were this itty-bitty blue-tailed lizard pressed close to my skin, my heartbeat dominating yours—and I loved you for it, I swear I did even if I didn’t realize it at the time. Because you knew I needed you right then, or I needed someone, some trickle of warmth to unthaw my frozen limbs. You could feel how wildly I was shattering on the inside—and how desperately I needed something warm to keep me in place.

Because it was dawning on me--who Ophelia was. I’ve never ever called my Ma by her name; it tasted strange on my tongue and in my head to mark Ma’s red-tipped features as Ophelia. It sounded…right and wrong at the same time, as imperial as she was, as sophisticated and feminine as she was, in ways I would never, ever be able to emulate—but it was cold, hard and harsh around the edges of my mouth as I tasted it, a stiff name for a stiff noble in some stiff land that froze over with the ice of polite, stoic indifference.

And—somehow—that fit, too.

“Of course,” I breathed—my voice ragged with another thing growing to replace the empty thrashing of my shattered heart. It was rage, that same blinding rage that had consumed me the first time I heard the Basin’s name associated with that travesty of war. “Of course, of course she asked you, of course--“ I babbled darkly, the words loose out of my mouth, scrambled and directionless as I shook my head repeatedly, as though trying to knock the sense out of it—

--of course it would be my Ma to make Leos into a monster--

--of course that's how fate would play out--

“’I thought for years that those who resided in this land were evil fools’,” I screeched in a mocking tone, my voice bitter and so, so sick, “ ‘but fucking Shapes invited me to see differently.’ And look! Look—I guess they aren’t such assholes aren't they? Aren’t they?!” You squirmed in my mane and I guess you were trying to clutch me and let me know that everything was gonna be alright but there was a black haze coming over me and I couldn’t stop it and—

“She’ll say anything, won’t she?” I spat, bitter poison dripping from my fangs and you were learning awful things about the name “Ophelia”, “she’ll say anything to get you to do anything she wants and who cares if it’s a lie? Who cares if it shreds you up later? ‘I thought this herd was evil but now I see differently’—‘Given the chance, I'd have you all over again’—“ I was spewing things at Lee that I’d forgotten he didn’t know; that I’d forgotten to keep hidden. “Well way to FUCKING PROVE YOUR POINT MA!!”

I kicked at the ground; a stone was thrown from under the striking of my hoof and above my back there was a CRACK and a sizzle as wings sprouted there for seconds, emerging by the heat of my passionate despair.

But it fell from me, almost instantly—and I stood there gasping and empty, left with these frayed ends of something between Leos and me. My eyes were wet—but I’d forgotten that I wasn’t supposed to cry anymore. I was unraveling—exhaustion was catching up—and I wobbled where I stood, unfocused and unbalanced, the world seeming to tilt underneath me even as my own world started crashing all around.

“….why?” I asked again, a croak in the back of my throat. Why did it happen? Because for all the screaming and the ruin and the heartbreak and the shattered homes and families and alliances and trust--for all of it, no one has yet to tell me why it happened in the first place.

Why, Lee?

Why were you called to fight?

Why were you ripped away from me like that?


"talk"