Common

Burnished by spite, wrought by anguish and grief of her own, she knew where he had gone.

The Islands had not been her home. Had never been her home. Their mother, driven by nomadism swept them away, clipped the root and shirked what her heart held in askance. Magdalena had always lacked forethought, lacked conviction. Impotent, and too selfish to care, she would raise her children beyond Lyov, not out of hate or spite or anger, but simply because she had no tether. No anchor. An illness she set upon her children.

And so, Liliya knew the path his steps fell, knew the sway of the ocean that carried him. She knew. She knew and understood. But she was always driven to act where he preferred to fade off into the silt of oblivion and brine. Her heart thumped with levied envy; her veins spiked with aggravation he thought to do it again without proper farewell.

Delicate, peace had them awash; cloaking them in idyll existence. It perched softly in the fair corner of their territory, watching them with careful eyes and the scales balanced. The cold ran across their stony territory, causing old bones to ache and pinch with renewed grief. She watched him change. She watched the smiles falter and the gilded eyes wane into remorse. His wife was gone, and the winter’s return only reminded him of her absence.

And Liliya, was useless to help. She lost her brother again, and brewing in her exasperation, she would follow. The Islands.

She shook the brine from her coat, frosting the paleness of her figure as the cold drenched the fiber. Her mane clung to her neck, the forelock falling across her brow and covering the tourmaline of her one eye. The sun was nigh, cloaked behind the horizon and smothered by the ink and vibrancy of a hungry twilight. It bled red and gold into black and indigo, with the stars faintly drawn beneath thin slivers of moon. A warm breeze tickled at her mouth, and she understood soon the thaw would come. The crossing had been treacherous, with the flow of ice and the spiked cruelty. But she was if ever, a resilient and stubborn thing. Hellbent and wrought from pale brimstone. Firebrand, the mouth prepared itself with an onslaught of reprimand for her dear brother, should she find him.

Ignorant still, of the Islands growth and populace, ignorant of its customs. She would no way of knowing where she had happened upon the shore, only that it was firm beneath her step and carried his musk across it’s face. She strode into the Commons, eyes like that of cat, Liliya began her search for Dear Nicky and whatever troubles he was in want to evade.