#curecify

aruktai has.... joined the party!?

bonus:

@curecify​  asked:  What does one do, when the war ends? It's a thought you've never had to quarrel with, your war is never ending. A plight that feels like it goes on as long as the very nature of conflict exists. You have never had to wonder what it means to sit with the faults one makes in times of strife, always moving, never breaking. But her? Her war is over. Now she tangles with the consequences in the wreckage. 

 You are a healer, of this you know plenty. There are many adages that don't hold much water once you look at them too closely. Time heals all wounds is one of those. Some things will never heal, not fully. Some wounds live deep beneath your skin and carry on with you like old ghosts haunting the cathedrals of your person. As a healer, you get very good at seeing those ghosts. In some cases you can mitigate the growth of them, in others you can help the host let some go. But it's a lengthy process, a time consuming one. And a painful one all the same. And Fordola? She is a graveyard of specters. 

 You join her, beneath the Ala Mighan stars, little more then the distant chatter of Ala Ghanna behind you both and the soft wind across the sands to break up the silence. Steam billows between your fingertips as you offer her a mug of tea to fight the chill, a roll of bandages and a few salves procured from your satchel shortly after. " Let me, in the very least, clean your wounds. It'll be little help to anyone if they get infected. "

she should’ve known he would come to find her.   too much to ask to be left alone with her thoughts,  the turmoil of her feelings   ━  though the realization of his approach comes with surprisingly little bitterness, and even less resentment.  she’s too tired for it,  after everything;  no fight left in her to protest  ━ least ways not tonight.  moreso,  though fordola will not voice the admission to anyone but herself,  she think she’ll even welcome the company as a distraction to the grief still hollowing her lungs,  the guilt crowding her throat;  each of them all too familiar companions by now,  wearing the faces of all those she’d failed with her choices;  charlet now among one of many.  

a wary glance is turned his way,  nostrils flaring on a sharp exhale ere she accepts the steaming mug of tea aruktai has brought along, the heat bleeding into the wind stung skin of her hands. she wonders briefly why he’d come to seek her out when there are so many others yet in need of succor,  ere she decides it doesn’t fucking matter anyway.  best to get it over with,  lest both him and arenvald start fussing about her like a bloody bunch of mother hens. 

fordola wonders if this is what defeat looks like.  so many years spent fighting towards a goal she realizes now would have never come to fruition;  and ahead of her stretches ala mhigo freed from its imperial yoke through no effort of her own,  her entire world turned upside down in the process. sometimes,  she still wonders what it’s all worth  ━ her life,  her relative freedom,  the chance so generously given by the resistance for her atonement,  knowing it’s on her to live with all the consequences of the path she walked,  by choice or not,  all the power she thought she had stripped of her one by one until naught remains but the knowledge it was all for nothing  ━  

but then she thinks of the little girl now sat around the fire with her mother,  enjoying a meal, still drawing breath and she thinks mayhap,  yes.  even after everything,  some kind of purpose or worth may yet be found. 

hah, if only charlet or any of the lupi could see or hear her now.  arenvald’s clearly rubbed off on her; the butcher on fast track of becoming the hero of her own tale  ━  laughable really. 

       the young girl had been wailing, roadside and alone; with no family in sight and gruesome bruises covering her knees. non-fatal, of course—cobblestone is unfit of villainy to such degree, even if anyone who's ever had the displeasure of tripping over its cracks would like to tell another tale. having left for a moment to inquire about the child's caretaker's whereabouts, he's relieved but not surprised to find his companion yet tending to her woes upon his return. practiced hands that must've finished casting soothing magicks by now have long busied themselves with tenderly wrapping the sore patches of her legs with woven bandage. the man's focus conjures a smile onto his lips. in a world torn by war and disaster there are so very few people left who understand what it means to care in a way thorough enough to leave fragile souls feel a little less lost. ( yet, he knows just as well how easy it is to lose oneself somewhere down the path of self-sacrifice ).

      Lips curl up at the edges , enough to reveal the barest hint of ivory. The mild apologetic’s red handed tell in action , the showman’s flourish at curtain call.

At first , he wonders what gives it away ⁠— perhaps the steady creep of  shadows beneath a canopy of white, thistles in a field. Or perhaps it is the ceaseless crackle of fire continously fed well past the hour of it’s demise. Yet another pot of tea placed upon it , and the steaming tea up perched precariously upon the edge of the table.

“ Perhaps I was waiting for your inevitable , and fine company. You are almost late to our midnight reverie , after all. “ An admonishment and suggestion artfully rolled into one , down to the velvet cadence of his words. It lasts for as long as a snowflake dares to persistent upon the tongue , doomed to wilt beneath warmth. Dante’s features become perturbed and resigned at once , branches electing to remove themselves of the last few leaves which dare to linger just past harvests end.

      “ I was attempting to write my letters. Elivre and Alienor finally sent word from Broken Glass. “ Head inclining a fraction to the right , gaze resting upon the small plethora of parchment half-scattered about dark wood , wax chips interspersed between , a telling tale of hasty fingers assailing waxen seals for their contents. Elivre’s elegant script clashing with Alienor’s more devil may care scrawl. “ T’would seem my hands had other ideas , however. “

      Hands outstretch and turn palm up , before his companion asks , revealing the subtle tremor and raised , perpetually  vexed latticework of red-silver scarring lancing across pale skin. His left flying a cruel banner of crimson. An incident with the kettle , a fools mind half-a-step behind the action.

One might’ve asked once , how someone could forget the ailment and once upon a time , Dante might’ve said it was a very good question. Now it seems like a question that answers itself , a sentiment book primed to absorb a question and spit out ink. If you cannot at least find light in their own miseries in this life , he reasons , sooner to throw yourself to the sea.

@curecify​: 🍼 "Give me a hand with this please, I need to help her mother with a check up, can you just keep an eye on her for a few minutes? Thank you." // Send 🍼 to see how my muse would react to being handed a baby

      “ This is a child — I’m supposed to  — Aruktai.“ A note of exasperation winds it’s thin , persistent tendrils around his words in artful reverie. It is a plight destined to fall upon deaf ears , however , pink eyes left to watch the Xaela’s retreating form behind smoke & soot streaked fabric.

Any other words waiting in the wings dissipate like sparrows in dawn’s morning song , never to be seen again. Memories. Instead , there is only him within the eye of a storm of hurried bodies , and the babe pressed within the cofines of a swaddle cloth. Hushed whispers and beleaguered commands flitting in and out of tapered , gold adorned ears.

      All too soon , the child rouses with a sound he accutely recognises , it’s a sound his sisters made once , when they were no bigger than this. Though they often wiggled like infant scalerippers within their own blankets , much to the burgeoning terror of their nurse maids. Dante had ever been a shadow , when not off making trouble elsewhere , flashes of silver amongst slate & snow. 

Unlike them , however , there is only big round eyes the colour of sea glass , threatening rain. Cheeks still dusted in soot , though the faded and half-smudged nature of it tells him there had at least been at some point , a hasty attempt at removing it. Something within his chest twists , string between fingers.

      “ Now now — “ he begins lullaby soft, temporary reluctance bleeding away in the face of familiarity, “ you’re safe , I have you now little one. There’s no need for tears. “

Scarred fingers pull at the fabric of his sleeve , removing it from the snug confines of his jacket. Setting to the gentle , persistent task of wiping away what remained of the soot stains.

Small fingers set about his index finger with a grip he’d daresay put iron to shame.  Mouth ticking upward ever so slightly at the corner , the first tendrils of warmth from a freshly stoked fire. Roses finding their will to bloom despite the frost. For a moment , the burden resting upon his shoulders takes itself upon raven wings , somewhere far beyond the red horizon.