Riga's Malachite Dream

[Narrator]
The smell of flowers and wood might have been pleasant, were it not for the shortness of her breath and speed of her step.

Illuminated only by Polynea, which hangs in the sky with no stars in sight, trees rise up from the ground around her path as though she were inside of a maw, running beside teeth with only the idea of escape ahead of her. Still, she cannot stop. The bundle is her arms is far too precious, her tiny heart beating much slower than her own.

Growling and the thudding of heavy paws from behind alert Riga that safety is still afar. She cannot stop. She will not stop.

[Riga Tabris]
Riga's heart thunders in her throat, in her ears, through her horns, long enough the curled tips linger in the corner of her eye. In her arms, Bethany no longer wails, the jostling and fear having stifled into a raw whine. Riga holds her close, one arm under her head, cradling the top, soft tufs of blue-black and those thin, swaying branches of a crown. If she could, if she could...

But she can't. The beast growls, threatening, accusing, pleading, although the latter might be delusion.

Riga runs, escape ahead, regret snapping at her heels.

She's sore all over, despite the rushed healing. Her insides cramp. She's still bleeding, sticky and warm and painful between her legs.

So it's that kind of dream. Yet something is missing. She runs.

Sweat soaks through the layered uniform, darkening the blue near to black where mud doesn't splatter it brown or the dust from the crushed gate doesn't streak it grey and marble. The uniform itches and scrapes and clings, unlike spidersilk, too heavy yet not enough. It catches on long brambles and tries to tangle at the knee.

The ground shakes under her boots. She runs, through the starless night, through the purple moonlight -

Instinct. She swerves, and the maybe-web-maybe-acid-maybe whatever Yelena spits-shoots at her goes sailing past. Spreads between the teeth-trees, a wall between escape and -

The soft, squelchy ground slides under her boot. She twists, putting her body between Bethany and the ground. A glimpse of her pursuer, a slice of the sky. Bethany wails. Polynea bears down through the inky, starless void -

Ah. That's what was missing. The stars. Her magic. Why is she running, when she can - did - fly?

"Tarosa!"

She cradles Bethany close enough to stifle. The gravity well of distant lights pulls her from the earth.

She doubts it will be enough. It wasn't, with Yelena. But with Gods visiting dreams and Liches sending drowning visions, she can't be sure death or capture will mean waking up.

[Narrator]
As Riga pulls on her magic, she feels gravity let go for a moment. The weight of Bethany in her arms becomes that much more palpable as her own is compensated by the Weave. She floats up, flies up, escaping the wood's toothy boughs, flying past the dripping acid-saliva and growling that comes from deeper within the throat. Instead, she flies up, towards the deep, inky void. Polynea stands at its center, like a beacon. Like an eye.

It blinks. She is once again in the mud, running through the woods. They are taller, wilder, reeking of magic and ideas, but also of petrichor and rotting leaves. Childhood. A jungle.

The growl gains a companion. Whispers of a woman float through the forest, their every letter half-sung and painful to the ears. Taunting. Riga feels her tattoos squirm and claw at her skin, asking, begging to be heard.

The path of brown leaves and grass beyond is different. It looks wavy, bubbly even, green in different hues and tones.

[Riga Tabris]
The whispers scrape against the inside of Riga's ribcage with claws of terror. The taunts - weak, spoiled, hypocrite, liar - pierce with truth and song. Riga's heart stutter-snaps, and Bethany wails anew against her chest, splotchy cheek warm against Riga's flush, dusky skin. The uniform has morphed into the wraps and shawls of her childhood, revealing her writhing tattoos across her neck and bosom, belly and arms and calves.

A promise. Not fate. Fate is broken. She just needs to get away from her, from them.

Wake up, somehow.

Her magic, remembered, is not idle. Bramble and vine and web snap at the growling monster Yelena has become. Walls of stone surge between them. Bolts of starlight blitz through patches of anthropomorphic dusk amidst the contontorted woods.

'Tis not enough. Another's will dominates the woods of Double Bay. Has since before the skies broke. But it's precious time to find a solution, a way -

Then muck and mush turn the green of Fate and Malachite, and Riga has a moment to decide which monster to take her baby to.

She can't risk this is not Bethany, somehow. She can't.

Fate is broken.

Her tattoos light up like one of the stars missing from the firmament, bright through the pain, and Riga rushes on, the fingers on Bethany's brow tracing runes of protection.
At least Seradez doesn't want her girl. Not above all else.

[Narrator]
Riga continues running into the mess of what once was Fate. With each step, the ground and surroundings morph to resemble less trees and more coral, made of the Goddess herself. Her movements become sluggish, as though the air had become water, and her lungs begin to call out for air, as though what she was taking in were not enough. The world is dark, save for the rune sstill shining on Bethany's brow. There are no stars. There is no hope. There is nowhere to go.

Way up in the sky, past the depths and fish and waves, Riga sees it. A single glowing star, its light defiantly bright and warm against the sea's fathoms. It shines, piercing through the veil of despair and certainty in loss. Then another. And another. A line. A path. A way to escape the road that had been set out ahead of her.

All she needs to do is trust.

[Riga Tabris]
Even drowning on land and crystal, Riga's ears strain for the whispers and the taunts, the tremors and the growl, like the lashed waiting for the hiss-snap of the next. Starlight pools on Bethany's brow, fed by her own dimming tattoos with each lumbering step. Her knees beg to buckle, to rest in the coral forest.

But she follows the starlit path. Their guidance has not betrayed her yet, where everything else has. Sun-yellow, yet far, a line instead of a corona. A single way out, a single way forward, and it's not lost on her that in a way, that may be like fate. But peering at the strands of the future, shifting them, taught her that you can walk only one path at a time.

Choice, is the crux.

And though her breath may be short, though her limbs heavy, she is not alone. Bethany, newborn, snuggles blindly in her bosom, lips seeking.

Tunelessly, awkwardly, she sings like she did those nights on the path, just the two of them around a guttering fire.

"U'vun, itha fra ma' ashalan.
Britha ash sou'vhen,
Hartha ash samahl,
Enansal min ashalan amahn.
Enansal min ashalan amahn."

[Druidic] "Stars, bear witness to my daughter.
Witness her courageous heart,
Hear her joyful laughter,
What a blessing that she exists.
What a blessing that she is of here."

[Narrator]
With each step and sung word, Riga feels the waters around her lighten, become easier to traverse. The stars shine brighter, joined by siblings and twins around them that serve only to strenghten the shape of the path forward. Soon, Riga feels the ground beneath her start to slope. Upwards. She climbs, now, instead of just walking, and the weight of Bethany feels like an anchor trying to pull her down below all over again.

Still, she manages. She breaches the surface, feels the lightness and warmth of open air once more, freed from the depths of chilling water and certain unknown.

It's all golden. Golden-orange plains of uneven amber roll into the limits of her sight and imagination. The very ground glows as though made of fire, but it feels solid, slightly translucent. Is it really amber? The stars dance on the sky, keeping their arranged shape while still leaving space for freedom. Like a true journey, the fusion between certainty and lack thereof. A loud bell sounds out in the horizon. Once, twice, thrice. Music rains down from the heavens in motes of glowing flame that Riga does not even feel fear towards. It is safe. It is welcoming warmth, memories of standing beside a hearth and sipping tea.

She blinks, and realizes she is sitting upon a plush chair. A blanket is laid out across her lap, music continues ringing out across the room, and Bethany is older, snuggled up on the chair between her mother and the armrest.

The hearth shines as bright as the sun itself, but she does not feel the need to squint or close her eyes. It is gentle in its dance of combustion, each crackle like a beautiful melody.

"Rest."
The dual voice of a man, like something between the depth of an opera singer and a castrato all at once, speaks.

"Rest. But do not linger. The journey is not yet over. Your path must still be walked."

Everything goes white, before faintly fading to black. Riga feels the familiar tickling of fur against her face, and opens her eyes to see the King of Nayora, demanding their rightful meal.

[Riga Tabris]
Riga blinks and wipes the dried tears where they pull at her eyelids. Flems is sitting on her belly like a demanding sentinel, but there's warmth and weight on both of her sides, heartbeats drumming close and peaceful into her skin through her shift.

Bethany is curled up between her and the wall, knees pressed into Riga's ribs, nose and cheek into her shoulder, breath itching across her neck. An anchor, pinning her to the sheets, but not a burden. Not a weight Riga can't bear, no matter what the Goddess or her might want her to believe.

A sun, for her stars to orbit.

The sun. Amber and warmth and a dual voice.

"... Kossuth?" She whispers into Bethany hair, tracing the contour of an horn to reassure herself the enchantment still holds.

[Flem]
The King's paw bats the cheek and nose is his Vizeer, more gently that she deserves for her tardiness. The Princess sleeps soundly, and he is hungry. She has no excuse.

[Riga Tabris]
Flem's logic shines clearly through their bond, and Riga buys a few seconds with scratches. Or tries to. Her other arm is half-asleep, tingling. Daenur is clutching it and Mothim's moppet too, half over half under the sheets, while this cot is eminently empty. After a long moment, she tries to wiggle it free, but the child only holds tighter reflexively.

Quite literally trapped in bed, Riga gives Flem a plaintive look. It finds no mercy in her oldest friend.

But there is more than one path to victory. A gesture, and the starlight hand forms. She has it poke Flem for attention, then move for the cabinet where his choice treats are held. A cabinet he could open for himself, but that is never the point with Flem.

The crisis of Flem's hunger postponed to the tressym's next mood, Riga lets herself sink back into the cushion. It's still early, from the fake light shining through the window, but the day ahead will be another long one, marked with uncertainties. She should get up, go over the many notes she made the night before, her report to Liviina, that passage in the book about Liches concerning the many shapes a Philactery may hold. Perhaps tackle the Gland project...

But Bethany murmurs in her sleep - drowsy, not afraid - and Daenur has quite the strong hold. Her path must still be walked.

But she can rest, just a little longer.