mel medarda. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
exhorts) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ruinations2019-12-15 01:18 pm
exhorts) wrote in ruinations2019-12-15 01:18 pm
Entry tags:
( psl ) you're gonna make your mark this time
[ "You have to let this pass," Harlan had told her. "You must let this go." Her failure sits heavy in her stomach in the days following the attack and she vacillates between staying near Dea and far from her, the guilt driving a wedge between them. For all that the attack had come as such a shock, Dea hasn't seemed as rankled as Ariella has been. There are more guards around her now, an intrusive thing that pushes the distance even further.
She holes herself up in the sorcerer's study and in the library, pawing through pages and pages of craft in the hopes of finding something that will help.
"It isn't your fault. You aren't a soldier."
No, she thinks, I am not a soldier. But she is my dearest sister and I will not let her come to harm.
The guards do not insist she stays around. Iris and Harlan welcome her in their place even with the sad-sympathy eyes she feels on the back of her neck when she weaves her enchantments and finds them lacking, the links disrupted by fear and uncertainty. It bubbles into frustration and anger and helplessness, this one thing that is hers and she can't even accomplish it. If she cannot enchant a weapon to keep her safe, if she cannot make a shield for her, if she cannot fight, then what can she do?
It comes to her in the middle of her reading. She can make an escape, can't she? Enchant a door that they might run through to get away. They can go anywhere beyond the castle, anywhere that might be safer.
With chalk, she places the markings, speaking into each of them. ]
You will open to the meadow and the glen, far beyond the castle walls. You will open beneath the tall tree so we might be safe.
[ Over and over as she places down the symbols, imbibing them with power with every word. She feels the power in them, feels them work into the wood and out beyond, like tiny threads interwoven in the very fabric of reality. Slowly, steadily, she feels that power grow. ]
Open for me, let me step through to that place.
[ Ariella throws open the door and nearly goes crashing into armored plate. With a brief stumble backwards in alarm, she stares up into a face she does not recognize, armor unfamiliar to her, as the door shoves a man out towards her.
She does what is, perhaps, expected: she screams.
So much for being brave. ]
She holes herself up in the sorcerer's study and in the library, pawing through pages and pages of craft in the hopes of finding something that will help.
"It isn't your fault. You aren't a soldier."
No, she thinks, I am not a soldier. But she is my dearest sister and I will not let her come to harm.
The guards do not insist she stays around. Iris and Harlan welcome her in their place even with the sad-sympathy eyes she feels on the back of her neck when she weaves her enchantments and finds them lacking, the links disrupted by fear and uncertainty. It bubbles into frustration and anger and helplessness, this one thing that is hers and she can't even accomplish it. If she cannot enchant a weapon to keep her safe, if she cannot make a shield for her, if she cannot fight, then what can she do?
It comes to her in the middle of her reading. She can make an escape, can't she? Enchant a door that they might run through to get away. They can go anywhere beyond the castle, anywhere that might be safer.
With chalk, she places the markings, speaking into each of them. ]
You will open to the meadow and the glen, far beyond the castle walls. You will open beneath the tall tree so we might be safe.
[ Over and over as she places down the symbols, imbibing them with power with every word. She feels the power in them, feels them work into the wood and out beyond, like tiny threads interwoven in the very fabric of reality. Slowly, steadily, she feels that power grow. ]
Open for me, let me step through to that place.
[ Ariella throws open the door and nearly goes crashing into armored plate. With a brief stumble backwards in alarm, she stares up into a face she does not recognize, armor unfamiliar to her, as the door shoves a man out towards her.
She does what is, perhaps, expected: she screams.
So much for being brave. ]