[SRP] A Way Forward? (Alienore + Adelle)

[elfstar89]

Solo RP between my Soqs Alienore and Adelle. Please do not post. Alienore posts in Light Blue, Adelle posts in Violet.

Alienore made her way along the river, tracing the path home through the winter snows. Snowdrops peeked above the white blanket, a promise of the return of spring. Golden bells rang hopefully with the thought.

As any other member of her family, Alienore loved the winter, the snows and the starlight and the holidays spent with loved ones, even if she spent so little time with her loved ones these days. But spring held its own beauty in the new growth, as summer did with the delightful opportunities to swim and to fly to alleviate the heat, and the autumn with its brilliant foliage. And right now, Ali could really use the hope and promise of spring. If the rumor she'd heard was true, then maybe this might be the best spring she'd ever known.

Alienore stretched forward a wing to brush away the hanging branches of the weeping willows that grew in a profuse thicket, wincing in pain as her wing twinged. All these years later, her wing still ached with the abuse her second eldest sister had wrought upon it. The sister who had instilled in Ali a terror of Skinwalkers. If the rumors were true...

If the rumors were true...there might be a way to no longer live in terror of Skinwalkers. A way for Skinwalkers to walk free of some part of their curse, a way for Ali to be freed from her terror of all who bore Oyohusa's mark.

She shivered. It was a longer road than she'd have liked, to come to the family herd lands on her own, leaving her bear Seren with the beginnings of the Nights Watch. Alienore wasn't even sure how her new friend Karloff would take the idea that Skinwalkers could be redeemed. But she had to do this. She had to know, if there could be a way to break some part of the Skinwalker curse.

Stepping from one willow's shelter to the next, she spotted the one she was looking for. The silver Wind mare bedecked in holly, red ribbons and silver bells stood on the riverbank, watching the sound of hooves crunching through the snow resolve into the shadowy figure of her youngest daughter.

Alienore whinnied in greeting to her mother.

The wind whispered faintly under the sheltering curtain of frost-rimed weeping willow branches. The first snowdrops might be blooming, but winter never gave up so easily.

Another winter melting away into another spring. Despite everything Adelle had tried, Neva had still not come home. Her wayward little girl, it seemed, would not be coming home any time soon. Even willingly bearing the pelt of a great bat, even having torn her baby sister's wing, Neva was still her little girl, and it still grieved Adelle to the core that Neva had done so many terrible things, sacrificed her will in her spite, and had ultimately seemingly lost her way home, no matter what Adelle tried.

It might seem terrible to want to reconcile with such a child, but Adelle loved all her children, believed in something good in all of them. And the idea that she had failed Neva so utterly, in not raising her well, in not guiding her back to the light, in the Charm not working...Adelle was frankly at wits' end.

The sound came to her, pure and bright. Golden bells. Few in this world had such golden bells. Looking up, she beheld the dark shape of her star-spangled youngest daughter making her way through the snow, whinnying. Alienore, who had wandered far from home in grief and loneliness of her own, Alienore, who still tried to make her way home from time to time. Alienore, Neva's most abused victim, Alienore, who alone had shared her mother's will to protect and nurture what good had come of Neva.

Adelle whickered in greeting. "You're home, Ali. What brings you home at this odd time of the year?"  

[elfstar89]

"I wish it were for better reasons," Alienore replied quietly. "I have heard a rumor, and need to know if it's true. If it is...maybe one of your daughters can come home in her own way. Maybe not for good, not immediately, but she can come home to you from the lonely road she walks." Her golden eyes filled with hope.

Having committed herself to the Nights Watch, Alienore couldn't really leave her chosen mission to come live with the family again. But coming home would be easier. It could be joyful again. Not marred with this painful sorrow that seemed determined to follow her since Blake left.

"Is there a Charm that can be placed upon a Skinwalker to restore their free will, and did you put such a Charm on Neva?"

A frosty breeze rippled through Adelle's long mane. Of all the things her youngest daughter had to ask, it was quite possibly the hardest to answer. Did Alienore have someone she wanted to Charm? Did she hope that the Charm could save them? What did her youngest daughter hope to accomplish by this errand?

She closed her misty blue eyes. She wanted her little girls to come home. Both of them. Oh, how she wanted Alienore and Neva to come back to her. Neva was still lost and wandering. But Alienore...could Ali use this Charm to come home?

"There is such a Charm, and I did give one to Neva." The ruby red hue filled her mind's eye as she spoke. "It is an Angeni Charm, made by an Angeni of their own blood and other elements of themselves. I cannot say if it works, however. Neva has not come home as of yet. But if you would like to try, if you wish to see if it truly works...your father has a cousin. You've never met him, and I gather he and your father were seldom in contact before now, but he is an Angeni. He is called Ziya al-Suhail, and he is the Angeni of Starlight. If you need an Angeni to petition, start with Ziya al-Suhail."

Adelle stepped up to her youngest daughter, wrapping neck and wings around her littlest girl. "I cannot promise success on this venture. I cannot promise you hope. But if you are still determined to go, if you can find your way home at the end of this, I give you all of my blessings, Alienore. Come home to us. Please. We miss you so much."  

[elfstar89]

Alienore wrapped her wings and neck around her mother in return, squeezing her golden eyes shut, taking all the comfort she could from her mother's gesture.

The rumors were at least half true. The Angeni Charm existed. It might not make Skinwalkers good. But if the Charm existed in the first place, surely it meant that the Charm had some sort of effect. The blood of an Angeni would very likely carry some powerful magic, maybe imbued with the breed's purifying nature. It might still be a myth, but this myth appeared to have something resembling a basis in reality.

One thing was for sure. Alienore had to try it. To see if there was an alternative to killing Skinwalkers. Karloff felt like the only option they had was just defensive battles. Ali was no fighter, Blake had that right. But had Blake been wrong about her strength of will? Had Karloff missed an alternative future with Skinwalkers?

"Even if it didn't work for Neva, I want to see if it can save someone else. If it can do what the rumors say, I want to help Skinwalkers find their free will. Maybe what I'm doing can't make Skinwalkers good. But I want to give them a chance to choose their fate. Maybe...maybe some of those cursed to wear the pelt can find their way home. Maybe we don't have to kill them all."

She stepped back from her mother, golden bells on her anklet ringing with a hope that matched the look in her equally golden eyes. "I'll find Ziya al-Suhail first. I'll try to secure a Charm and give it to a Skinwalker. And I'll try to come home for winter solstice this year," Ali added with a smile.

Adelle wished the embrace with her youngest daughter could last forever. She wished her family was home, safe and happy and together again at last. Just one perfect winter solstice together, all of them, with all their assorted children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, friends, their families, and on down to the entirety of the families tied to the Silver Willow Bell Herd.

Regretfully, Adelle released her youngest, and saw something that filled her heart with a warmth she feared she'd never feel again.

Ali was radiating a hope and energy she hadn't seemed to have since before her children had been born. Ali finally saw a path out of her own nightmare. At long last. Could Ali come home one day? Adelle wanted that. She wanted it so much. Ali losing Blake had been the final straw that broke her heart, and Ali had spent seemingly forever running away from that heartbreak.

Adelle put on a hopeful smile, misty blue eyes still anxious. "Ziya al-Suhail will very likely help you. You can find him anywhere you can see a lot of starlight on a moonless night. We'll...we'll look forward to seeing you this winter, shall we?" Adelle faltered, unable to keep her fears entirely out of her voice. She wanted so desperately to believe.

Alienore smiled. "I'll do my best, Mother." And with a quick nuzzle, she turned around, and was pounding away through the melting snow, wings beating to lift off and into the sky, leaving behind a mother who badly needed some hope in her life.

Ali just hoped that she could provide it--to her family, and to those who had lost their chances at a family like hers when they'd fused to a pelt.