Change The Tides

The Burden

"... all that blood was never beautiful... it was just red"

Arlette POV

Sitting on the sidelines has never been more difficult than it is now, but I'm nowhere near rested enough to get into drills or even workouts just yet. My largest injury has given me a limp, the large cut right up my thigh that is. Getting to walking again took help from Har, that was until a few nights ago when he disappeared for a while and came back with a dark oak, very intricately carved, very beautiful cane for me.

Of course... yes, he got me a hand-carved cane so I could be as independent as possible, and ever since then, I've gotten rather good at managing it and the limp that is slowly leaving me, but I suppose it is a good time to take a break.

Though... part of me wishes I was better able to distract myself from the pain that never leaves me rearing its ugly head, reminding me of how much it really hurts.

That pain may never leave my heart, though it subsides sometimes to the point of finally finding the relief that forgetting provides, but... but on the day of that shock, on the day that such pain tearing through us... it becomes the hardest to ignore.

Especially as an overcast sky hung above... threatening to rain... my senses are so sharp, the mere smell of rain on this day exactly turned into something that's supposed to be so lulling into something that I cannot stand.

So yes... I do wish I could go out and fight my feelings out, I do wish I could behead a training dummy or ram my sword through a training dummy's chest... I do wish I could stop my sadness from wracking my body so thoroughly that I feel like tearing someone's insides out because mine ache so wholly.

A single droplet of water fell on my lap, my senses froze as I remembered the feeling of being poured on by the innocent raindrops that merely wished to water the soil and nourish the earth that instead chilled me to the bone that night.

My eyes immediately flicked to that one droplet of water as the smell of smoke... drifted into the air around me, dense... thick... suffocating.

But there wasn't any smoke, there never is, I create the smoke every time.

Soon... more droplets of water began to fall onto my lap, but they weren't from the clouds... but from my sullen eyes.

A rumble shook the ground, looking up past the skyline made of falling towers and rusting roofs... the clouds had darkened... and so had mine.

I let out a shaky breath... looking up into the sky in search of light... something... anything... but no matter what light I find down here, the sky is always gray on this day, and I fear it will be forever.

Slowly I leaned over onto the railing beside me, as I sat on the steps of the ship I now call my home... looking over the water, wondering if the other half of me is looking over here too, longing for my comfort as much as I'm longing for hers.

My eyes returned to my lap as a cold breeze chilled my bones, reminding me of how I didn't have a jacket that night, Aud gave me hers because I was shivering from standing out in the rain for too long... staring at the twisted metal that made me dizzy after a mere few moments of shock.

How my poor heart finds the strength to beat on days when every image flashes nonstop in my head and causes it to jump and fall constantly... is a mystery to me.

Closing my eyes and resting against the railing, I let the pain wrack through me like the crashing waves below smack into the belly of the ship, as there's nothing I can do except hold on until it subsides. Thank goodness I know it eventually will, when I was younger I had no idea if it ever would, this feeling stayed with me for years... really I... I haven't been free of it until this last year, so I suppose... feeling it again is a little... extra painful this time around.