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Their call sounds, and you have no choice but to answer. It wakes within you rather insignificant but displeasurable memories that have lain dormant for so long. It had been the last meeting, the last time you had been summoned, that they had all bickered among themselves like spoiled children, when you had last seen Arah, when you had been promoted despite your inexperience. They call and, begrudgingly, you answer. Your steps are deliberatly slow and weighted, each moment serving to do nothing but make you more convinced that you should just turn around, seek the quiet comfort of your cavern, pretend that you hadn’t heard anything at all, just to avoid the mess that you now so clearly remember. Just ahead of you, Etziel lunges through the snow, entirely too keen to know just what it means, to be a part of something other than your needless hovering, all of your effort to keep him so impossibly sheltered.
His innocence, as always, tempers your pessimism, grants you some respite from all of your ceaseless worry and doubt. You feel a smile creep along your lips the longer you watch him, his little body (it is not so little anymore, for all that he has grown, something that has yet to fail to amaze you) half disappearing in the banks of snow, his excitement contagious. You leap forwards too, forgetting once again all of your self-imposed misery, easily closing the distance that had come between the two of you, your lips reaching out to gently brush the crest of his neck. He squeals in surprise and you only laugh, his spindly legs working harder now to move with any sense of speed through the piles of snow. You allow him to remain just ahead of you, pretending to grow breathless, exaggerating your movements to mock tiredness. The sound of your huffing causes his eyes to roll, but there is an unmistakable smirk on his lips as he lifts his head in his little victory as the two of you edge closer to the outer ring of Basiners. It is there that he waits for you to catch up, eagerly listening to the murmurs as they resonate, words coming and going from your perception.
‘Ki’irha’, as her name is spoken you strain to listen, only hearing the additive of ‘soldiers.’ Your curiosity is piqued, but you do not interrupt, making a mental note to ask her later. Again he molds in to your shadow almost as reluctantly as you had originally set off, though he watches the others with wide eyes, his curiosity nearly tangible as you make your way to a suitable, albeit distant, place among the gathering. The Lady speaks of the Falls, and voices offer themselves willingly to accompany her. You nearly wince at the thought of when you had followed Deimos and Erebos to the Edge, of all the awkwardness that had found the three of you there. It is not something that you would want to experience again, and that alone is enough to make you wonder about the sanity those that speak possess, all except one. It is only as you actually look at her that you notice the blood that sticks to her (something that, alone, would prompt you to action), dried and with the absence of any wounds (it is this alone that calms you, despite the how that rests on your tongue, permeates your mind), only then, as Rexanna speaks his name, that you notice the absence of that particular thorn in your side.
As Hotaru turns her attention to Deimos, so do you, his voice rumbling over alliances, plans, things that are made no less tedious by their necessity. The greenhouse, he says, and you remember only how it has fallen to the back of minds, yours included. Your gaze follows his as he looks to the South, the glint of metal standing out amongst the white. He speaks of names you do not remember though you are sure they have been spoken to you before, of the Sentinels and wolves (you wonder, idly, just how he plans to proceed with such interaction). Even as he speaks of threats, you do not read much in to it, prefering to regard your home as the untouchable crevice of the North that it has always been. It is his next words, however, that leave you suddenly beaming, searching for the ocean-mare within the crowd, to offer her your support, your congratulations. But you do not see her, and though it does little to suppress your excitement for her, because who else deserves it more than her, you make a silent promise to yourself to celebrate with her after.
As Deimos falls quiet, a voice you recognize (and not terribly fondly) speaks of the Sentinels, and your eyes nearly fall out of your skull you roll them so hard, finding it laughable that he would even think to bring such a point up. Gracefully, Lena corrects him, offers peace and solutions in ways you believe that only she can. It is something that you had envied, once, the way her kindness extends beyond her duty to help, to heal, the way she makes it so effortless because she is so very pure. Once, but no longer, as those ideals have done nothing but hurt you.
‘Is it not the warrior’s job to guard the borders? We should look to our own.'
His (previously unnoticed) presence (had you not thought that he would have dropped dead by now?) alone is enough to agitate you, but it is his words (however insignificant they truly are, however little his whims and opinions and thoughts—should he even experience such things—actually matter) shot at your friend, calling her resolve and dedication in to question when he himself offers nothing, that flare that ever-present feeling of red-hot rage within your gut, send you teetering forwards hastily to rise to her defense. But she is quicker to react, and quicker still to put him in his place. You fight to hold the childish smile back, fight the sense of pleasure in his disgrace, colored with pride for the stardust girl, as it tingles up your spine, through your heart; a small, petulant little victory that is not even yours to claim in the first place. Perhaps he will end up as a target for practice after all.
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if there's no one beside you when your soul embarks