Ciara had been in a funk since returning from the Kingswood and her journey into the garden. She didn’t speak to anyone and she wasn’t in the mood to fool around with guards or courtiers. She spent most of her time in her room, trapped in her thoughts. She knew what the journey meant, and while she had momentarily let go of the past in order to return home, her family and her home were not completely forgotten. She had left them to the cold and decay and the guilt wrapped her heart was unrelenting. If anything, she found herself holding tighter to what she had tried to erase, like a woman dropping a wedding band down a drain in anger before frantically trying to fish it out when the seams of her heart tore apart.
The thing was, Ciara didn’t want to let go. She thought she had before the ancient one had come to Shaman She’d been happy, and while it was a shallow joy at returning to shaman, it was far nicer to feel that the raw tenderness that the reopened scars were creating now. Her familiar was the only one making the self-imposed prison bearable, and even she was getting tired of being cooped up all the time. The poor monkey had not gone into the portal with her fairy and had only what she could gather from the telepathic link to know what had happened. But Ciara was keeping much of her mind locked away.
Sleeping longer hours, it was not Ciara who noticed the glowing pendant, but Nalani. It was the familiar who saw it and the familiar who tried to wake the woman from her nightmare. However, when Ciara refused to get up, Nalani brought the pendant to her, and, upon laying it on the shoulder of the fairy, was transported with her to the white marble steps of the Pantheon. The journey forced Ciara from the dream world and back into reality, still wearing nothing but a night shirt. Arms wrapped around her waist and hair mussed, the woman glared at the short man on the steps as he bounced merrily around, his cheer a stark contrast to how dismal she felt.
He spoke first to the youngest in the small group, and though Ciara was not new to the idea of people inhabiting the bodies of gods and people impersonating the divine (being born from an imposter herself), but it was hardly a good time. Especially if she would have to do the same and teach an original fairy something she’d learned in the garden. Enjoying life was not a difficult lesson to teach, especially to someone who already knew and simply was not thinking about it. Ciara didn’t know what she’d learned from her earlier trip, and even when Omni turned to her and told her, Ciara had no confidence that this would work at all.
Indeed, memories were not always friendly, and perhaps she had learned to let go, but the lesson was brief and temporary. If recent behavior said nothing else, Ciara had not learned that lesson well enough to truly look forward. In the garden, Nalani had helped her pull her from her memories, calling her home. What if that didn’t work this time. Besides, what did she know of Allianah other than her prowess at war? How was she supposed to teach the Nubian anything?
“But I-” she started to protest, but the words were cut short in her mouth as the hand of light hit her face and she vanished into thin air. |
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