fractured morning light on the sea

her lips flatten. she did not like the idea of a scarred arch atop of her wings.

"i was walking on the beach," bea answers, tone annoyed. this motherforsaken court. it was a curse. the winged fae was not meant to walk, but here she was - condemned to the ground. "not much heroics in slicing your foot on a broken shell. wonder if your cousin would take any joy in a rock covered in my blood."

"i doubt many here in the summer court," those from here and those forced to be here, "would take a liking to anyone's blood." it was vague enough, right? because in truth, ysara didn't know her cousin well enough anymore to speak for them - even if she had her assumptions.

"at least the wound isn't deep, just a quick stitch and some balm and you'll be as good as new. though i'm afraid you'll want to wait before you go venturing along the shore again," the needle slid through again, and ysara's gaze never left the other's. "it's not easy being condemned to a world that isn't your own." though most were from prythian, each court did often feel like an entirely different world from the others. "hopefully you won't have to get too used to the summer court's environment. it can sometimes be unforgiving."

his shoulder spasmed again. too many long years had passed since zacarías last suffered a wound like this --- a gash along his shoulder, once pouring blood now a trickle. blessed by the mother that it wasn't deep. but the sting of pain still bit, swelling discomfort and embarrassment.

and yet, he forced himself still as stone at the directions given. allowed the prick of needle, the feather-light touch. a bemused huff was his first answer, followed with, "not much hero to play at, simply asking a rowdy patron to leave as demanded. my own fault for expecting a different outcome." at least the fight was short-lived, despite the wound suffered.

his gaze finally flicked to the hands sewing skin, then to the fae's face. "thank you. for offering to help. forgive my rudeness for not saying so earlier."

with a few swift glides of the cloth in her hand, she soaked up the remaining blood before dropping the fabric into the basin beside her - the water blooming a dark, rich scarlet as it was sullied. her fingertips grazed over the stitched line, testing the seal and admiring her own work.

“you’ll be fine by morning,” a hint of pine and mint then filled the space between them as she reached for a covered jar, scooping out a dab of ointment and smoothing it over the injury. "though next time you decide to tell someone settle down, might try to move a bit quicker." a joke, of course, but hopefully they'd pick up on her playful tone.

"better yet, may want to take caution in general until this thing heals. considering it feels like almost half of prythian is staying under one court, that may be easier said than done." not every court worked well together and her anxiety had a habit of jumping to outcomes that were less than ideal.

"I don't think I caught your name before you began helping me." He said with a sigh. "Neither, trying to take a short cut to get back to the palace and missed the stray fence." He shook his head. "This court hates me." He shook his head.

"and i don't know about that," a hint of laughter then escaped. "the summer court is no easy feat, but hate you? you just gotta get used to it. granted, we do all have a bit love-hate relationship with the place." she paused, a bit of hesitation. "i'm assuming coming here wasn't exactly by choice? where ya from?" evading questions, even ones as simple as asking for her name, was ysara's speciality and was often met with her shifting the conversation on to the other.

❝ i haven't the slightest idea how this happened. ❞ and no, asha would definitely not entertain the notion that as she aged, she lost awareness. could not anticipate perception changes nor believe herself to be further away from something harmful. blaming the deep magic, and the virile and moody shifts of the nature which both she and ysara worked with. she dared not wriggle as the other patient did. ❝ my wounds have enough personality without me to help them. how dreadful. i was minding my own business. ❞

ysara worked by touch more than sight, fingers moving without thought, stitch by stitch. she'd long since memorized the rhythm - needle in, draw through, breathe out. it was easier to focus on that than on the quiet heaviness across from her.

not the wound, but the woman beneath it.

in ysara's eyes, asha always seemed to carry herself like she’d already outlived everything. and maybe she had. there was something about her presence... so steadfast and unbothered, like time broke against her instead of the other way around. ysara hated how safe that made her feel. hated the way her chest softened around her. even with all the walls between them, asha felt like a home she'd never been invited to and somehow, ysara couldn't find the will to leave.

"and you've only just noticed? i can't say i'm surprised, considering it's you i'm talking to," she paused, delicate eyes examining the cut - wondering if it truly was the magic of this jolt that caused it.

"though, if it is at all possible this is because of this little shift, perhaps we should get a second look?" concern colored her words and she bit the inside of her cheek. showing genuine worry and care was never easy, especially when it was someone she had come to be so found of. "who knows the kind of magic could be behind this or what it would mean to be touched by it."

CLOSED ⟳ @fcllengrace

once  his  court  had  been  settling  into  their  assigned  lodgings,  in  the  moments  between  they  finally  settled,  and  gathered  everyone,  the  shock  had  not  waned  of  seeing  his  cousin.  the  very  cousin  he's  searched  for  since  she  left,  following  her  father's  exile.  everything  surrounding  that  has  left  the  high  lord  of  dawn  trouble.  his  father  did  not  allow  him  into  this  mess  he's  made,  and  he  knew  it  was  his  father's  it  has  his  scent  all  over  it,  but  it  was  always  with  a  pang  of  regret  he'd  not  been  able  to  do  anything  then.  with  the  shock  was  also  a  bit  of  good  news,  ysara  has  been  in  summer  all  this  time.  in  truth,  saint  had  his  spies  in  every  court,  and  still  she  had  managed  to  slip  from  his  radar.

she had just slipped out of the infirmary when she felt a pull. not magic. not exactly. more like memory. something knotted in the blood and tugged now, low in her belly. the corridor was quiet, the hour late, and the only sound was her own breath...not until she heard his voice.

the light from his lantern cut a warm streak through the dark, casting shadows across his jaw. same eyes, same mouth, same everything and yet, perhaps over the years her memory of him had faded. she looked at him as if she'd never seen him before and she wondered how the child had grown to be this man.

her lips parted but no words came.

not at first.

instead, ysara looked at him. really looked. not with fear. not with shame. just… tenderness. bruised and wary, but tenderness, nonetheless. she had searched his face a thousand times in her memory, and still, nothing compared to standing here, lantern-light soft between them.

“i—well, i wasn't sure you’d want to see me,” she admitted, quietly. though how silly of her to think such. "but clearly mother," the universe, "had other plans for us." a nervous little laugh escaped her, a sound like the tinkling of a bell.

another moment of silence passed and she searched for the right thing to say. did she apologize for her absence all those years? ask him how he was? how his sisters were? did she even have the right to ask him anything at all?

CLOSED ⟳ @fcllengrace

having  nearly  every  fae  in  the  summer  court  was  nowhere  near  ideal,  alina  finds  some  comfort  in  continuing  her  routine  of  riding  at  dawn.  she  had  missed  in  the  capital,  as  well  as  in  the  dusk  court,  nothing  truly  prevents  her  from  doing  so  there  but  it  was  not  summer.  it  was  not  her  mounts,  nor  her  favored  white  mount.  the  moment  they  landed  in  summer,  alina  had  to  simply  gather  hear  bearings,  account  for  her  family,  and  her  fae,  uncover  the  state  of  her  court  as  its  high  lady  was  absent  for  nearly  ten  months.  although  she  has  kept  her  trusted  and  incompetent  staff  in  charge,  a  court  could  not  go  this  long  without  it's  ruler.  she  finds  that  nothing  is  out  of  sorts  much  to  her  relief,  save  for  the  shock  she  offers  her  fae  at  her  abrupt  return.  her  staff  appeared  relieved,  and  she's  curious  when  she  catches  ysara,  the  dawn  healer  that  had  sought  refuge  in  her  court,  appearing  out  of  sorts.  it  was  a  natural  response  from  her,  as  it  was  for  summer  fae,  alina's  staff  are  as  stunned  to  find  not  six  courts  but  seven  courts  along  with  the  capital  in  tow.

the sun had barely even kissed the sky yet, but ysara was already there. the mare shifting beneath her, eager too tread on, but all the fae could do was sit and stare into the distance. she couldn't sleep, her thoughts had run wild. she knew she should've been worrisome over the king, the shift to the summer court, the state of prythian as a whole, and yet the only thing to plague her mind was the reunion with her blood. a family she barely even knew now.

it was only when the sound of hooves in the distance drifted through her high tipped ears, had ysara managed to come down from the cloud of her thoughts. a faint smile tugged at her lips, her eyes following the familiar figure of alina. she watched her and the white horse as they trotted toward her.

moments passed before she even found the will to respond to the high lady, though the creases in her forehead and the somber expression in her gaze was all the indication alina needed. “i’m not evading,” she added after the pause, soft and barely certain. . “just… postponing.”

another beat and her eyes finally met the other's.

rosalyn had never liked unfamiliar places. not because she feared them—no, fear was too tangible, too grounded for what unsettled her. it was the in-betweenness of it all. the way walls blurred together when she wasn’t paying attention, how corridors stretched too long or bent too sharply when her mind wandered elsewhere. and now, here she was, untethered in the summer court, the salt-heavy air and golden light pressing against her senses like a too-warm embrace.

she had meant to follow the directions she had written out for herself after arriving. had even traced the path in ink over and over again in one of her journals. but now, standing in a hallway that felt like it had shifted when she wasn’t looking, rosa realized she had no idea where she was.

her skirts whispered against the polished floors as she turned in a slow, uncertain circle. no one had given her much notice so far—just another visitor drifting through the grand halls, a pale slip of a thing against the sun-kissed vibrancy of the court. but she could not keep wandering forever.

rosa exhaled, brushing a stray curl from her face, then spotted a figure just ahead. without hesitation, she crossed the space between them, light-footed and unbothered by the quick oddity of her own approach.

“pardon me.” she said, her voice lilting with its usual, airy cadence. “i seem to have misplaced myself. you wouldn’t happen to know where they’ve tucked away the dawn court chambers, would you?”

she tilted her head, gaze flickering over them like she was reading something only she could see. lingering a moment too long“or are you lost as well....or not here at all...do tell me if you arent real now, won’t you? i’d hate to be talking to nothing at all.”

the flow of rosalyn's skirt, the way her curls caught the light as they dangling in front of her eyes - there was a strange comfort in it. the smallest of nodes, to prove to ysara that this was - she was real.

a faint smile tugged at the irony of rosa asking the other if they were real, when ysara was questioning the same herself. too many years had passed, but the familiarity of her voice never faded from memory.

"rosalyn?" her voice came too quiet at first, but the sound of her boots against the stone brought the attention toward her. "i can—" she paused, her gaze shifting between her cousin and the other, before a gloved hand reached forward, and rested on her forearm.

since the shift, ysara had been hesitant to bridge the distance that formed from her own self-exile. it didn't feel real to have her own flesh and blood in the same place as her, but now that they were here she couldn't just act like there wasn't history there. legacy, really. they were family and that meant something.

"let me show you the way." a gentle grip tugged the other toward her, an eagerness she was perhaps using as a way to prove herself, "summer court can be a bit of a maze, i can see why you got turned around." this had been her home for some time now, and while she hadn't spent much time in the exact area, it wasn't completely foreign to her. "we'll take the scenic route, too." a chuckle followed, warmth flowing to her cheeks.

"oh, hush! don't you see me chattin' here?" the musician laughs, drink sloshing in a pointed threat in their direction. "let me clear my pipes and i'll get back to the singing. queue up your requests."

it's just a short break in between her set, a moment to catch-up with the regulars and shop-vendors, make a new friend, meet an old friend who'd been vanished months ago. she liked arrival stories best - hearing how they landed, where they landed. she wanted to know everything, filtering out which bits would make a good story. because purnelle was a storyteller at heart.

with a wide, open gaze, she prompts - "you were saying?"

open for @ofcourtfablesarchive ; the midnight market, the summer court.

"if you need to—" she paused, her focus back on purnelle now, a soft smile to ease any worries. "don't let me keep you from them, you're clearly wanted." though what kind of message would that send? they snap their fingers and purnelle comes running? not a chance, ysara thought.

throwing back another gulp of her drink, the fae spoke again, "i was just venting, that's all. not even venting. more like anxious rambling." she shrugged, tapping her clawed fingers against the glass in a rhythmic pattern. "i don't know, i'm probably overthinking," as she often did, "it's just strange having everyone here." everyone as in her family. here. at the summer court. "it's a bit nerve wracking, not gonna lie. feels as though i'm working alongside a bunch of strangers."