so i listen to the    wind for an answer

She never forgot. Sometimes she thought it was a dream, perhaps. It was something she would dream, certainly. Often, she does dream of him, of all those memories that will forever be both curse and gift. There’s something of a double edged sword in her memories. On one side, she wants to forget, she wants to move on. She’s tired of the ghosts that follow her everywhere, tired of her brother’s voice chiding her in her own head. He’s an itch she can’t scratch, a dream she can’t quite wake from no matter how hard she pinches. But on the other side, she’s afraid of the day when she can no longer remember his face clearly, when she can no longer call his voice to mind.

She is both afraid and desperate to forget. Either way, she loses.

Time moved on though, and so did she. The shadows dissipated, leaving her back in Helovia with only the smell of smoke in her nostrils to make her believe something had happened. She’d gone home to the Edge, been promoted, found Apollo again, made friends. Life had changed in imperceptible shifts ever since that day. Maybe the shadows were to thank, maybe they showed her a memory to remind her that she could be her own person. That she could fight for herself. Maybe it was just her own mind she should thank, finally moving past the grief. In the end, it doesn’t matter what she has to thank. She’s begun to move on.

Today though, something calls her to the Heavenly Fields. It’s not a literal call, just a desire, something that tugs her feet in that direction. She follows, and perhaps she should be afraid, but she simply finds herself curious. The night is beautiful, cooler in comparison to the daylight hours of Tallsun. And there, beneath the stars and the clouds, is a small little rift. A place where the world doesn’t need to align quite right, just a sliver of uncertainty in the middle of an otherwise peaceful evening.

She crosses that line, and the world seems to split, she feels like she’s half here and half not. But then again, she always feels like that. Her thoughts are half in Morham, half here. But this time, it’s physical, like the world has literally split her in two. Though it doesn’t hurt. No, instead, there’s something shimmering, and she keeps going toward that light. Don’t go to the light, Lyanna, she thinks, laughing at herself in this world that’s not really part of the world. She goes to the light anyway.

In the center of the field is a horn, and it looks like it belongs to the Gods. In truth, it looks like a crescent moon, like the Goddess had plucked it from the sky and placed it in the field for her to find. The Goddess that she has never met, but yet who has loaned her the power to heal, and now this. It is stunning, and she slips her head through the silver chain that glimmers in the moonlight. She breaths into the horn as she moves to put it around her neck, and suddenly, wind erupts from the horn, creating a barrier. She stumbles back in surprise, and then realization dawns on her, and her smile grows wide across her black lips.

She slips the chain around her neck, grabbing the lip of the horn in her mouth, and she blows, turning this way and that. The shield of wind erupts from the other end, obscuring anything in front of her. A laugh escapes her lips, the horn falling against her chest, settling next to the red ruby. The ruby casts shadows on the silver horn, like speckles of blood. Appropriate, for the girl with the murdered family. But the morbid thought can’t ruin her mood. It’s not her power as it was before, but still, the power of the wind hangs around her neck. It is hers. It’s not borrowed, like her healing powers. It’s completely, entirely hers.

lyanna