PM to join Starfall.

[Ruari Darkwind]

67 Winter 515

The silver-white face of the moon was unfeeling but observant, probably a sign that Leth was deep in thought and considering the world he saw and heard, changeable and volatile it could be in recognition of the silent moon-god. The night was late, the black sky cold and dotted with the many flickering lights of Zintila's glory.

Syna did not belong here. She stood alone during the day, but at night Ruari thought she must still watch the world and her moon-god.

Ruari wasn't as fascinated with dreaming up the way the gods interacted, though. She was watching the sky, in respect to Zintila and to Semele, as the stars were beginning to fall, bright flares of fire and light that tickled the edges of her vision in the cold, dead of the night.

They were beautiful, stealing her breath when the wind couldn't and urging her heart to pound, but she remained silent. In awe.

Because Ruari loved Semele, and through her Zintila, and the falling stars were enough to keep her riveted, she found the night perfect to pay her respect to the Mother Mizahar and her starlight daughter.

[Ife]

She should be happy. She should be delighted.

Ife was pregnant. The morning sickness had struck her like a bolt of lightning, and she was ravenous all of the time. Though the midwife had confirmed her pregnancy a mere seven days ago, Ife had not yet told any of her family – except her husband.

Her secrecy was not out of fear of a miscarriage – in fact, that thought had not even crossed Ife’s mind – but because she struggled so deeply to feel joyous about the news. Of course she was happy, in the way a married woman is when she finds she is carrying her firstborn. But recent times had been so impossibly hard…

With a gasp Ife found herself thinking of him yet again, and instantly she felt breathless, dizzy.

Breet.

Her older brother, only one year older than she, had been among the taken. He, who had been Ife’s playmate when she had first joined her family, had been snatched away from the very city that had always symbolised safety and sanctuary to the Inarta. It was impossible for her to understand, and yet the image of her brother’s smiling face, aging quickly before her from the buck-toothed five year old to the handsome young man he had been last time she saw him, haunted her. Where was he now? Had he escaped? What fate had befallen him?

The past season had been an sea of emotion for Ife. First, the joy of her marriage, the drunken happiness she’d felt for those precious first days where she had called Graham nothing byt Husband at every opportunity. And then the horror as that awful news travelled to her. People had been taken! She had felt a gut-wrenching fear for her beloved, but Graham was thankfully safe. The relief. Then the panic yet again: her family! Guilt, worry, fear, relief.

And finally the realisation, the heartbreak. Breet had been taken, last seen by their father to be fighting and struggling, forever a rebel and forever headstrong. He would not have gone easily, but what would be the consequences of his defensiveness? It didn’t bare thinking about.

Just like that, her brother was gone. One moment, there. The next, no longer. Like dust, he had been swept away and Ife could only hope that he was still being carried by the wind, alive and surviving. How she wished she could whisper to the breezes, to carry a prayer and message to Breet, wherever he was. I miss you, I love you. Come home. I need you.

And amongst all that pain, a tiny growing life inside her.

Ife cast another wilful gaze to the sky. Was Breet looking at this very same sky? Gods, she hoped so.

Amongst that darkness broke through a streak of white. It took Ife’s breath away. In that moment, the world fell into place and finally she admitted that all important secret to her brother, the shooting star:

”I’m pregnant. And I am terrified.”

[Ruari Darkwind]

The preternatural silence of the scene was startled only by the hushed intelligible words that punctuated the still air. Ruari, unaware that she was not as alone as she had thought she was, started and craned her neck, looking around and away from the sky. She had immediately taken the small words as a plea for help, instinctive in her desire to help, yet wary for the threat of the pirates' return was heavy in her heart.

The person Ruari saw was not close to her, but even from this small distance she thought that they could have been twins; the woman had red hair, redder even then Ruari's own, and she was light skinned and small. Briefly, Ruari fancied that it was the night playing tricks on her; it could have been that recently everything had grown too serious, too hard and troubling, and either Semele or Zintila wanted to lighten it up.

"Are you well?" Ruari asked back, hushed by the cold night. She hadn't heard what this woman said to the stars with such reverence, but Ruari thought it was a good thing; maybe the woman thought that she too was alone, and she didn't want to be bothered. She didn't move forward, because Ruari knew that grief was heavy in Endrykas and she did not find it pleasant to interfere in the grief of another, especially with her own pounding away fiercely in her heart.

There was a brief flare of brighter and more numerous stars falling before a small respite, and it was in the respite that Ruari again scrutinised her until-that-moment unseen companion. Maybe she hadn't initially realised Ruari was there, either.

[Ife]

Ife’s face remained tilted up to the sky, but now her eyes were closed. There had been no shooting stars in her line of vision for a chime or so, and having attached her brother’s entire being to them, their absence was too much for Ife to bare. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend the sky was filled with them, each a promise or whisper from her missing brother. Dean was, she was beginning to realise, a beautiful thing indeed.

But a small, quiet voice broke through her blind meditation. Ife’s eyes cracked open, wide and startled. She had foolishly and selfishly convinced herself that only she had seen the shooting stars, and thus only her could mourn their loss. But at the moment she opened her eyes, Ife saw waves of white streaming across the darkness again. She smiled, thankful that this stranger had spoken to her and allowed her open herself up to the midnight sights yet again.

Finally, the Inarta turned to the source of the voice. In the darkness, she was taken aback by the familiarity of the appearance of the other woman. Red hair, pale skin… The name Nook came to Ife’s mind, but she pushed the memory instinctively away, her blood turning cold at the mere thought of her life before Endrykas. There was only so much mourning a girl could do in one night.

“I am.” She said instantly, her voice barred and controlled. Her own defensiveness made Ife wince; this stranger had asked an innocent question, and it was likely she too had been impacted by the horrors of what had happened. So Ife, tilting her head back to the sky, changed her reply. “No, I’m not. And I don’t think I will be ever again.” Those words, spoken tentatively but honestly, were released into the sky like a sad prayer. The weight of what she had said lifted away from Ife, and she shook her head minutely in the darkness, scolding herself for her own honesty. “I’m sorry. I’m never normally so self pitying.” Bringing head back down from the sky and facing the other redhead again, she offered the same question: “Are you well?”