Armageddon, Let the Light In

Out of Character:

open to 1, but PM before joining for thread details. <3

Her body lay in a forest. It was autumn, and the floor was covered in golden leaves, with bits of red and brown speckling the piles. She was naked, though the breeze that stirred the leaf litter through her blonde tresses didn’t bother her. Her shoulders were still, her chest lifeless. Scars crossed her sides, tracing her arms, and marring the smooth skin of her cheek. Moss grew along them, green lines that webbed the pale canvas. From a gaping hole where a breast should be, the green fronds of a fern stalwartly grew out, though the tender baby leaves at the base were freckled with dried blood.

She sat up, suddenly. Sweat soaked through her nightshirt, the linen clinging to her skin. She felt cold, and tired, as if she hadn’t slept at all. The pale pink morning was peeking through the shutters at the window, and the fire in the hearth had grown low. When she realized she’d been holding her breath and let it out, a cloud billowed from her lips, hazy and light. Luca gathered the blankets she’d kicked off and buried herself under them, letting the heavy quilt bring darkness over her face.

“It was just a nightmare,” she said quietly, then yawned. Already the details were starting to fade, from the way the sunlight drifted down from the canopy to the way birds had sung her funeral dirge. She remembered the fern, though, the way the ends of the leaves curled, the dash of bright green it brought to the muted yellows around.

Dreams were the Sway trying to tell you something. At least, that’s what Leala would say. As Luca stretched and rolled, trying to bid sleep to come back from where it had been shooed away, she thought of her friend. In a few hours the sun would be up properly, and she would be preparing for her baptism. Leala would be there, watching with her large brown eyes and her crooked smile. Swallowing the lump in her throat, the girl tossed again, holding her stomach. Nerves or need of breakfast, it protested and lurched.

Nerves, she told herself. After all, after today she would serve the Ethereal Sway.

The pew creaked as she moved. It was pine, and old, the waxing on the golden surface wearing thin. She thanked the leather, even as she fiddled with the strapping at her side. Armor might well be the only thing keeping her from a death of splinters. The oil lamps along the perimeter of the room left a smoky feel in the back of her throat, and it didn’t help the wave of nausea threatening to rise up from the pit of her stomach. Her fingers kept messing with the buckle, tightening it and releasing it over and over.

“You can keep that up, but you’re just going to wear out the leather.” A whisper in her ear caught her off guard. She gasped, and to the sound of a giggle, she turned wide blue eyes to the girl sitting next to her on the pew. She had the kind of brown eyes that were like a warm hearth, a favorite blanket. Burgundy curls fell past her shoulders, obscuring the white embroidery along the chaste neckline of her chocolate dress.

“I’m going to mess it up,” Luca whispered past a knot in her throat. Her eyes felt hot, and for a moment she took a deep breath. Her voice was a chant in her head, an incantation set on one spell. Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry… “Leala, what if nothing happens?”

“You’ve already been chosen by the Sway, you goat,” came the teasing whisper. Her best friend leaned over and laid her head on Luca’s shoulder. Their hands clasped, fingers lacing together. “You’ll be brilliant and go off to a grand adventure. What is there to fear?”

“There’s a lot to fear….” Luca took another breath and tightened her buckle one last time before slumping back. The pew groaned again and she placed a small kiss on the top of Leala’s head. The two friends paused together, watching the priest prepare the altar. Someone was bringing forward the iron spear that Luca would soon call her own. It was dark and foreboding and somehow seemed much larger than the ones she’d practiced with all summer.

“Well, I’ll go with you,” Leala said. Luca let her eyes travel to their intwined hands. A small silver ring was around her friend’s pointer finger. It was marked with the crude proof that it had been forged with hammer and file from an unskilled hand, but Leala and been wearing it every day for weeks now.

“What about the blacksmith’s boy? He’ll be disappointed if you go.”

Leala chuckled, the sound louder than their hushed voices and drawing a look of contempt from the priest. The girls straightened up under his irritated gaze and Leala fidgeted with the ring before she nodded.

“Yeah, but I’d rather be an old maid with you.”

Luca scoffed, “And what all our dogs?”

“Thousands of dogs.”

A chorus of giggles overcame them and it took as long to silence them, drawing their composure around themselves like a curtain as the church began to fill, a melody quietly spilling out from the old organ in the corner.