daughter of the blood (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blackjewels) wrote2009-10-03 04:11 am
blackjewels) wrote2009-10-03 04:11 am
someday you will ache like i ache
In one of the little parks in the Nexus--one of the particularly family-friendly ones, where the AVF is very strong and there's a playground with slides and jungle gyms and all that other little-kid stuff--a portal has been opened like it was carefully cut with scissors. There's a bridge attached to it, linking the realm of Terreille with the Nexus, but anyone who examines it too closely is likely to get the impression that someone foolish enough to enter it without permission may never find their way out.
There are children coming through it.
They range in age from 5 to 13 years old, all girls, and they all look incredibly ill: sunken eyes, pale skin, too-thin bodies. Haunted eyes, like children of war. They're all wearing ankle-length nightgowns, like they came from some old-fashioned hospital.
And some of these children are terribly maimed. Missing or broken limbs, scars, patches over eyes, rope burns on the wrists and ankles, raw patches of scalp where hair was pulled out, bruises--old, carefully healed wounds, all screaming indicators of abuse.
They all react the same way: shy curiosity towards children, paralyzing fear towards adult women--and men, they just flee from. There's a moment of awkwardness where the children already at play pause, and then a seven-year-old Nexus girl offers one of the newcomers her side of a jump-rope, and then the two groups are playing together easily.
The Lady is not here, but her dark psychic scent, like thunder, wolf-song and hooves on packed dirt, is strong.
There are children coming through it.
They range in age from 5 to 13 years old, all girls, and they all look incredibly ill: sunken eyes, pale skin, too-thin bodies. Haunted eyes, like children of war. They're all wearing ankle-length nightgowns, like they came from some old-fashioned hospital.
And some of these children are terribly maimed. Missing or broken limbs, scars, patches over eyes, rope burns on the wrists and ankles, raw patches of scalp where hair was pulled out, bruises--old, carefully healed wounds, all screaming indicators of abuse.
They all react the same way: shy curiosity towards children, paralyzing fear towards adult women--and men, they just flee from. There's a moment of awkwardness where the children already at play pause, and then a seven-year-old Nexus girl offers one of the newcomers her side of a jump-rope, and then the two groups are playing together easily.
The Lady is not here, but her dark psychic scent, like thunder, wolf-song and hooves on packed dirt, is strong.