Rehabilitation (Mendings, Minor & Major 12/07/24 - Calla)
Jul 11, 2024 23:33:27 GMT
Jaezred Vandree, Andy D, and 4 more like this
Post by dee on Jul 11, 2024 23:33:27 GMT
Calla wakes up in the night. Safe but clammy with sweat, lungs aching.
She takes a deep breath in, holds it.
Holds down the scream that claws at the cage of her chest. A crushing memory. A six week wound.
She breathes out, releasing whisps and tendrils of the torment. It is not hers. It has never been hers.
All that anger, and for what? Just a bridle to be bent by. Every pull and stamp another lurch down a long and ancient road built before her birth.
Let it be done. Let the road end. Let it all be thin paths and animal trails from here on. Breath in. Feel the scream. Breath out. Let it leak, and hiss. Let it steam.
There is something buried beneath that keening note in her. Beneath a half burnt ball of fur. Beneath a mountain of hurt, but carefully excavated with every rise and fall of her chest.
Breath in. Breath out.
Another boulder moved, turned to sand, let go. Fragments of colossal creatures, long looming, long carried.
This debris is immense, but it is not endless. She can do this moment by moment. Hour by hour. Fingers pressed to her diaphragm, whole peaks and ridges broken up into dust beneath her hands. Valleys and vales in which she’s been trapped, then tortured, become the collar she was always caught in, but even before that: crowded into a barren corner and feral with it. Frantic to find any degree of freedom. Desperate for escape.
And now...
here it is.
She has done the one thing none of her awful, conniving bloodline could have foreseen. She has put her fate in her friends. Put her pieces on the board and taken her hands clean off for them to move as they may. Trusted them with her very life. Let go, and fallen, and despite every second of her upbringing, and a fall for maybe forever, put aside any thought of betrayal, and believed.
Turned to Orianna before being claimed, body and soul, and mouthed words hard won.
“I trust you”.
And now? Now she is past the plan. Beyond the road. The collar broken. Galloping into the wild country. If she can only empty out that scream without it tearing her apart in one horrified howl, she will be free.
How many living breaths has it been already? She doesn’t know. Cannot count it.
How many will it be? Impossible to tell. She’ll have to find out as she goes.
But it’s a number. A countable number. And beyond it... an endless library, an infinite stair.
She can already feel wild laughter pushing up from beneath.
She takes a deep breath in, holds it.
Holds down the scream that claws at the cage of her chest. A crushing memory. A six week wound.
She breathes out, releasing whisps and tendrils of the torment. It is not hers. It has never been hers.
All that anger, and for what? Just a bridle to be bent by. Every pull and stamp another lurch down a long and ancient road built before her birth.
Let it be done. Let the road end. Let it all be thin paths and animal trails from here on. Breath in. Feel the scream. Breath out. Let it leak, and hiss. Let it steam.
There is something buried beneath that keening note in her. Beneath a half burnt ball of fur. Beneath a mountain of hurt, but carefully excavated with every rise and fall of her chest.
Breath in. Breath out.
Another boulder moved, turned to sand, let go. Fragments of colossal creatures, long looming, long carried.
This debris is immense, but it is not endless. She can do this moment by moment. Hour by hour. Fingers pressed to her diaphragm, whole peaks and ridges broken up into dust beneath her hands. Valleys and vales in which she’s been trapped, then tortured, become the collar she was always caught in, but even before that: crowded into a barren corner and feral with it. Frantic to find any degree of freedom. Desperate for escape.
And now...
here it is.
She has done the one thing none of her awful, conniving bloodline could have foreseen. She has put her fate in her friends. Put her pieces on the board and taken her hands clean off for them to move as they may. Trusted them with her very life. Let go, and fallen, and despite every second of her upbringing, and a fall for maybe forever, put aside any thought of betrayal, and believed.
Turned to Orianna before being claimed, body and soul, and mouthed words hard won.
“I trust you”.
And now? Now she is past the plan. Beyond the road. The collar broken. Galloping into the wild country. If she can only empty out that scream without it tearing her apart in one horrified howl, she will be free.
How many living breaths has it been already? She doesn’t know. Cannot count it.
How many will it be? Impossible to tell. She’ll have to find out as she goes.
But it’s a number. A countable number. And beyond it... an endless library, an infinite stair.
She can already feel wild laughter pushing up from beneath.