KAHLUA

For all of the dramatics she employed, Kahlua often forgot that others had worries just like hers. Of course, when she was with them she’d be more than happy to listen to their sorrows if they wanted to share but later, at those moments when she was struggling with her own depression, it seemed like she was the only one in the whole world whose life was a disaster. So while she drug Ophelia down into her own pit of despair, it hardly occurred to her that the Forsaken would have felt sorrows as consuming or as troubling as her own. However, if she had actually been paying attention, she might have noticed the thoughtful way the white woman listened to her troubles and seemed to know them even as she did a terrible job of explaining them.

Her own heartbreak swirled in her head. Her king standing there beside her, her best friend, the one who had kept her sane through more troubled nights than she could count. The ground she stood upon was what anyone else would have called home, but Kahlua knew what home was. Home was huddled under Kaj’s wing, pulled close to his side. Home was her skin pressed against his, her nose in his neck, his warm breath crawling over her skin. Home was closing her eyes and letting go, knowing he would solve any problem that came her way. Home was the way he made her feel safe.

But his idea of home… it broke her very heart; because there, on the very edge of that heartbreak she was imagining, were children. Foals, dancing to her music box, playing with her scorpion, dancing through her forest. Then they were coming to her, calling mother, dancing around her, needing her. She couldn’t do it. Even farther on the edge of her mind was her own childhood, her mother, her father, her siblings, and the darkness that had ruled everyone’s lives. No. She couldn’t go back there. So she let those memories go, and listened to Ophelia’s words.

Her gentle blue eyes settled easily enough on the Forsaken, ears and mind receptive to the advice that was offered her way. And the advice was all sound, and it made a lot of sense, but the poor queen was left with an intellectual struggle she did not know how to grapple with. She was proud to live this life- there was no idea that made her happier than the idea that she should be queen of those who followed her- but how could she be so depressed by something that made her so happy in idea? She decided not to try to solve this mysterious puzzle and instead continued to listen, bobbing her head where appropriate.

Admittedly, the idea of giving less of herself was an odd one. And the idea that if she thought differently then she should go to hell, well… it did give the paint pause. Tilting her head, she pondered the idea, wondering what exactly that might mean for her. Luckily, she did not have to ponder long. Given an out from intellectual endeavors, she would take it every time. “You’re right… we should explore. Where to?” Her tone brightened slightly and she stepped forward, nudging her basket closer to a tree where it would be safe until her return.

For his own part, Khan only dropped to the ground long enough to grab the glowing rock out of her basket before returning to her back, perhaps in an attempt to mimic the silver dragon. Did he admire this handsome creature with breath of ice and spark? It seemed so.

@[Ophelia]

the sunshower