eriel dreamed frequently. they were always in vivid Technicolor that hurt her eyes and were filled with things and places and people she didn't understand or remember. sometimes she remembered the dreams but, more often than not, she awoke with wild eyes and a bone-deep sense of fear for a reason she couldn't remember. those were her bad days. but it wasn't just the nightmares that eriel forgot - sometimes she woke up feeling as content as she could and had no clue why she felt so pleased. those were her good days.

today would be a neutral day (if she was lucky): eriel woke up from her dreamless slumber with bleary, unfocused eyes.

the girl lifted her head from where she had tucked it to her chest the night before, taking in the stone walls around her with the innocence of a sleep-addled cub. when she came up with a blank as to where she was, a white hot wave of panic swept over her, causing long limbs to jumble to an upright position. red and black coat rising, the woman's ears flattened into her head and she took short, frantic breaths as her body trembled.

then, just as quick as this panic arrived, it abruptly vanished. kirastasia had been here, her nose told her. the warm, musky scent was fresh enough and it melted the tension from her body. teal eyes roved over the stone insides of the cave and a mild, flashing moment of panic threatened the peace when she realizes her snowbird isn't there. the woman forced herself to breath in kira's scent, loosening locked muscles one-by-one. the ever present gnashing gears crescendod in volume until it was screaming. kira always comes back, kira always comes back, kira always comes back, kira... she chanted mentally in a continuous loop until the gears quieted to the usual low buzzing that filled her ears daily.

moments like these were a staple in eriel's life. since the day that kirastasia found her, they had come viciously and usually, without reason. over the months that she had spent in kira's care, eriel was proud to say that they had been gradually decreasing in frequency.

healing was difficult for anyone, but especially for someone as broken as eriel. she had neglected her body for many, many weeks before her confrontation with romulus and then her poor mind had shattered into thousands, may be even millions, of pieces and the combination of the two had left her fragile in more ways than one. kira had fixed it though - her kira could fix anything - by first mending the body, then the mind. eriel hadn't been able to eat much and keep it down in the beginning, but her little savior is the most persistent little thing that eriel has ever met, and somehow she gained the weight she had lost in her misery.

the mind was trickier and while she was healthy in body, her head was a mess of broken glass and clashing gears and most prominently, a deprived and desperate need. her heart, or what's been pieced together, sits in the hollow, gaping cavity that is her chest. it aches constantly, these pieces of her heart, and even though she has tried so, so, so hard to forget him, the pieces hold romulus and never, ever, let go.

but they also hold little kirastasia like a vice and that's really all that keeps eriel sane these days. kira is her best (and only) friend. kira makes the gears quiet down and sweeps away the broken glass and keeps the memories from hurting too much. eriel believes that this is what healing feels like.

the ginger woman eventually broke from her stillness, black stilts taking her towards the mouth if the cave. type breeze is nippy and it makes her nose cold, but the world is peaceful and the view from the cliffside is beautiful. the cave is not, and never will be, as comfortable as the forest of her birthplace (a place she has vowed never to return to), but the cliffside soothes the dull ache of homesickness for reasons she can't explain and settles a few pieces of her heart back into place.

eriel can't be happy, not even with kirastasia by her side, but the feeling that settles in her bones makes her think that this might be as close as she can get. with a muted half-smile, the girl situated herself in the grass outside the cave and waits, patient and desperate, for the return if her alabaster princess.