#bornicarus

SHE HIDES WITHIN THE RUBBLE,   a spring - song girl marred by dust and dirt as her body,  a flourish of bruises blooming here and there,  aches for survival.  the violence outside scares her.  she trembles in darkness,  huddling over a child,  protecting him from stray debris.  don’t worry,  she’s told him    (  an innocent like her,  entangled in the struggle  ),      we’ll be saved soon,  you’ll see.  she has always believed in the infallibility of heroes,  in their unwavering defense against evil and tyranny.  it is herself that she mistrusts.  her,  a frail and powerless thing,  armed with nothing more than a keen shard of hope.    (  we’ll be fine,  we’ll be fine,  we are fine :   this,  a rosary she recites with teeth.  )    her lungs fill with blackened smoke.  she prays someone will reach them in time.

caela stellae phanes!   the mother of our fave, thanatos efrem stellae.   she’s 6′8″, strong as all hell, and quite literally the nicest person you could hope to meet!   i love her.

since writing about her with no limits would take hours, i’ll only talk about two things: her name’s meaning, and how caela’s kindness is perceived by her children.

caela stellae phanes translates to, roughly, “the sky’s stars shine”.   the name has multiple layers.   caela was the first to be born from the star that would later be the kingdom of lucent, so she is the sky.   her skin glows and is tinted various colors, marked with freckles in the design of constellations.   her stars literally shine.   but the name is also a prophecy of sorts; caela’s stars shine.   her children, thanatos and anima, are her stars.   she believed, with her entire heart, that her children would reach heights she could never imagine.

next on the list is caela’s kindness.   as a ruler, caela was benevolent and fair.   when warring against humans, she often took mercy on them and refused to cause more damage than good.   the greeks often compared her to athena, both due to her strategist prowess and goodwill towards the enemy.   even when she died, impaled by thanatos’ sword, she told her child to not be afraid; she’d watch over them no matter what.

this final message has two different effects.   for thanatos, in their mind, it cemented their mother as a legendary figure with unflinching compassion and empathy.   for anima, it morphed her perception of their mother into one where she believes that caela was a naive fool with no understanding of reality.   it’s why thana strives to be like their mother, but anima strives to be anything but.   (there’s also the matter of anima believing thana’s idolization of caela to be compensation for their guilt over her death, but that’s a completely different post.)