Reclaiming Pack

[Thalia]

More freezing waters. Nimeda floated, hair rippling across the surface, the flowers at her crown withered and grey. Her skin was death-pale, the discomfort unheeded, though it was her flesh which held her attention. Her fingers traced the design writ on her arm as the water sluiced over it.

Help us.

She didn’t know who the us was, but it was the first time her Other had ever attempted communication to bridge their distance.

“You went home,” she murmured. Because when she looked upon the shore, desolate as it was – and had always been – she still knew where she was immediately. The cracks must be widening for the knowledge to come so easily, or perhaps the resonance was just that strong when she walked old paths. The enormity of what had been and was now lost sank in her like a stone. Her eyes were wide and sad. Her heart broke in their depths.

She staggered up the black sand shore, grief like shattered glass in her chest, certain in the knowledge that the Age had turned without her. Everyone she knew and loved was dead. The tears were frozen diamonds in her eyes as her legs failed. She rarely used her power, let alone abused it, but she reached into the bones of the world then – wrenched a memory and forced it into being. It was not simply the fluttery transformation of will but something that came groaning and solid, a bend in the pattern that for a moment at least folded in on itself. What this place once was, it became again.