#// and got the writing flowing for a bit after co*vid

[starlsssankt]

@an-endless-saga​ sent an ask // 

Noelle fingers twisted and she looked to the horizon.

"She always blamed me for her life going the way it did. Our father wasn't kind...after our mother Faded he took us to the Myrmidons mountains. He worked as a Court witch. We had illyarian blood so I guess it worked for him."

Noelle sighed and turned to look Aleksander rubbing at her arm. She looked like Baghra, but where her sister was all sharp angles she was round curves.

"I - she hated me for being the favorite at court and of our father. We fought a lot, I just wanted her to love me."

She clenched her hand looking to the Keep where Olivier and she lived. She sniffed brushing the tear away looking to Aleksander.

"At first when Olivier and I married she was supportive. Our father didn't like him as he had a lot of debts to pay. But she sided with him and made him change his mind. I was so happy, thrilled even. Perhaps when it counted she would care for. Then Olivier came to me distraught a year into our marriage. He was clearly drunk and he spoke of how they'd kissed, of how Baghra had urged him to keep drinking. I'd been away at the Myrmidon Court for a week. I -"

The darkness in their blood flickered them. The shadows moving over their skin like it did with Azriel. It twined around her fingers like Aleksander's. They didn't always appear as they did on Azriel's. She clenched her hands and looked to the horizon again.

"I believed my sister when she said Olivier made it something it wasn't. After Mikhail and Elias we had you two. She came to me speaking of this Heartender she'd found. Of the bond that snapped. I was overjoyed for her, for the world finally giving the happiness she should have always had."

She looked to him and titled her head.

"Do you know of Rask, of the Western Court psst the True Sea? They had witch hunters long before Fjerda. I assume they trained the human kingdom in it. Anyway, her mate was a rebel, a smuggler getting witches out and to Prythian. He died in a crossing, the baby she was supposed to have born a stillborn."

She exhaled, her body shaking now. She pressed a hand to her stomach looking back to her boy, her Alexei, her Aleksander.

"I think that broke her more than anything else. To see I got what she desperately wanted. I - perhaps I was naive to want invite her into my home. Perhaps I should have been smarter. But our father was gone and I didn't want her to Fade alone in a nest of ghosts. She - she took you on our 20th wedding anniversary. You and your brothers were to be staying with Edan's parents. There was an hour when we had people coming in and out before we departed. It was late and I - something made me check on all of you. And you - you - Azriel wouldn't tell me what happened. He blames me, of course he should. What mother doesn't know where her baby is?"

She clenched her hands and stepped hesitantly toward him.

"I know it's not - I - can I hug you Alexie? Or do you prefer Aleksander? I - I wish I could say I want her to die, to cut her into tiny pieces. But I've died before, I've - perhaps it's cruel that I rather she live to see her loose everything she gained again."

She looked to her hands, her finger twisting her ring, a durast ring. The ring her mother had worn made by her father.

"She left a note that I wouldn't miss you. That I had so many blessings and she just needed one. I sent The Wild Hunt after her. I - I wanted her to die, to be dragged here for death. But I eventually realized she had you. And what if - what if she hurt you? What if she - what if she took you more permanently from me?"

She took a gamble and cupped his cheek, blinking the tears away.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry I didn't come for you for sooner. I'm sorry we met in the backdrop of a war. I'm sorry I couldn't give you the childhood you should have had."

𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐒 𝐌𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐃, and it was as if from a distance that her words came. Of course, he heard them, but they were muted, a fog over their tone. This story he’d never heard, it might have explained why his mother-- 

No, he realized then, as her story kept going. She wasn’t his mother, the woman he’d known. Not technically. Blade strapped to him, he stood almost as still as a statue, staring out at the horizon ahead. Jurian, Azriel... even Anastasiya had left him alone when Noelle had said she’d wanted a moment. 

Now, he had an idea why they’d all gone the other direction.

Aleksander didn’t say anything at first. He listened, and tried to stop the roaring in his head, in his ears, as she spoke, as everything came crashing down around him, and the shadows thickened at his fingertips. Subconsciously, yes, for he didn’t really call to them. Not this time. This time, they were simply responding to the tempest raging inside of him. The storm that wasn’t settling, whose winds whipped his insides up-- 

❝ My name... ❞ He sighed, shook his head, breathed out another long, slow exhale. Like he was trying to ground himself, a ship in a tempestuous storm. ❝ No one calls me Alexie. It’s not-- It’s not my name. ❞ His words were rough, tone tense like every string inside of him was pulled so taunt-- A rubber band just ready to snap. If it was given half the chance

When he felt her hand on his cheek, he turned to face her. Just an incline of his head, a tilt to the side, but it was enough to look at her. At Noelle. At-- 

She can’t be. This tale is too... it’s too fantastical, he thought, but somewhere, deep--deep--down, he knew she spoke the truth. No matter how loudly that wind tried to drown out her words. 

❝ Why? ❞ Maybe that word held too many meanings, maybe he should break it down into the thousands of questions he had. But that one word, it held it all. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t she? Why did no one say anything? Why didn’t you come to me? Why didn’t you find me? Why did you leave me with her? 

Because he’d known, no matter how much his mother--or the woman he’d thought was such, at least, which still blew his mind, and made that storm worse--there was a disconnect. Like she’d do anything for him, but didn’t really love him... He’d chalked it up to the fact that they’d had so long together, just them, that eternity had worn them down... 

But that wasn’t right, was it? He realized that now. 

His eyes met hers, and he knew it. He knew what she said was true. He didn’t know why, didn’t know where that connection came from, but he knew. 

She was who she said she was, and the woman he’d known all his life-- She wasn’t. 

❝ What childhood would that have been? What childhood would I have had that differed from... from what she gave me? ❞ Because they’d always been running. Hiding. Looking over their shoulders... 

And now? Now he knew a bit more why they’d done such a thing.