stargazer, your head full of sky
you were not ready for goodbye
Björn's talk of the weavers reminded her of her tribe, of nights spent with heads craned skyward to hail the celestial river and beseech the wisdom of the Great Wanderers in following the chosen path. These moments stuck with Sleia not for their mysticism, though certainly she'd gazed upon the heavens with wonderment, but because it had been in those selfsame stars she had first read the quiet itch to go, to press onward, to follow the celestial river as it flowed out to a great unseen sea.
Perhaps it was the path the Wanderers had chosen for her all along - the beckoning red glow of an EXIT sign at the end of a dark and oppressive hallway. Come dawn, though, that didn't matter; the mothers set out on the path their stargazing had justified for them, and one does not contradict the mothers' word lightly. Sleia did not leave until the ache of resentment outweighed her fear of rebuke.
She should have stayed.
She should have flown sooner.
The copper mare tilted her head quizzically as Björn spoke of the commons, her brow furrowing with troubled comprehension. "Lay claim to them?" The flesh on her shoulders jumped as though shaking off a persistent fly. Her family had occasionally crossed paths with strangers, but the land was there for all of them and they parted ways peacefully come sunrise. Though she would surely be shunned for trying to return, her own confinement to the path had at best been enforced through social pressure and not by force. There would come a time in her life that she would understand that there was little difference between the two after a point, but for now the idea of claiming another soul as property was far enough beyond the pale to distract her.
"Well I certainly feel lucky then," she replied, the soft giggle that followed laced with perplexity. Sleia hadn't dodged many bullets in her life - at least that she could point to. "I appreciate that, but I've hardly earned the right to your protection. I have nothing but my gratitude to offer in return." Nothing at all, for despite her admirable spirit she was not yet much of a warrior or politician, and she had crossed the channel with nothing but her pride to her name.
And, of course, after hearing about the sorts that stalked the Commons in search of newcomers to claim, she could not help but nurse a growing knot of unease at the thought of indebting herself to the kind, scarred stranger.
sleia *
hope is a butterfly, no net its captor