Khaeris Dawndancer

She looked up at the stars

Remembering the crisp colors of them

But no longer seeing the spectrum.
 
Everything was muted now.

Snow dampened sound.

Every aurora was weak.

Grey tint to all.

The only colors running true

In the forest

Were the blues

On her blade

In her eyes.

That was the color near death.

It had felt a bit like a rebirth, coming back to this time. She had been gone for over six months. Vanished. Poof. As good as dead. It hadn't been hell, but her time away certainly hadn't been heaven. She had not been sure it was going to be a purgatory, even with the insistence everyone had tried to reassure her with in the months prior to her correction. But here she was, given the second chance to live in her second chance time.

Habitually, lost in thought, Khaeris ran a fingertip at a small imperfection on her upper arm. There was no scar--just a small injection and then it was done. But there was a slight rise in the subcutaneous tissues. The small tracker was there. Pollux had, apparently, been carrying it with him constantly, in...

The seashore was sacred now. She didn't keep many sentimental objects when it came down to it; she could get rid of most of her belongings and feel fine about it, with the exception of a very few items. But places? Places were sacred and kept close to her heart.

Her toes dug into the beach and her sandals dangled from her fingers as she walked along the familiar shore. She wouldn't go far, Pollux was on his long board. But the meandering alone-together felt nice an Khaeris smiled to herself.

She knew no matter what happened, this particular stretch of beach and shore was theirs. Not in any possessive way, but in a memorable way. They'd spent hours here shooting, getting swimming lessons in for her, and generally just being together....

She woke up with a gasp, shivering even under the heavy blankets. It was dark in her room. Moonlight came in through the gauzy curtains her aunt favored, painting all the edges of everything silver and white. Without color, the room looked flat. But it wasn't the deep, dark, heavy cold she'd been dreaming of moments prior. She sat up and tried to catch her breath, but the images kept come back. Her imagination ran her through everything again.

Water. They'd been under the lake. They'd heard explosive note of the impact, the crack of the ice, the panicked screams of the draft animals, and the ironically cheerful burbling of the air out of the vardo as it sunk quickly into the frigid water. The cold would have stolen their breath as they...

She had never stayed somewhere with a basement. Or rather, it was really a root cellar, snug under the farm house. There were big folding doors that lay near the ground and opened outward. The lock had been easy to break, but the doors still closed tight together to seal out rain, snow, critters, and ... other things.

She looked around as her eyes adjusted. The room had dirt walls and there were the thread-thin roots that pushed at them. It seemed fitting that  she would bury herself down here to avoid the disaster overhead.

She had nothing but the clothes on her back and one alarmingly flat rucksack that had once been stuffed full. Supplies were running low. Until she'd found this haven anyway. Her heart was beating from a whole...

He never said the words. Not out loud. But before he'd done his jump, his eyes had dared her. He didn't believe she'd do it. She'd failed before. He wouldn't have judged her if she couldn't do it. But she'd been working so hard to try.

Khaeris looked at him, she could see him still, but it was very far down. He was treading water and looking up at her. He was still beaming with the rush. Her toes curled around the edge of the cliff and gripped at the stone. The humidity was thick and the water below was doubtless cool and refreshing for him.

Goosebumps appeared up and down her limbs. She reached up to shake out her hair, feeling the way sweat had curled it over her neck. Her fingers tugged at the suit around her legs. She looked...

The night sky was still  overcast, but even so, a few stars pushed through the haze as the rain waned. Khaeris looked up, catching the last few drops on her cheeks. She couldn't help smiling, feeling them slide down and drop onto her damp dress. Coming out of the barn and back into the open air was refreshing. The barn had been cozy and warm with all the folks inside, sweet with the scent of hay, that musty smell of lofts and stalls. Outside though... Outside, the fresh scent of rain swept away the cobwebs from her spirit. The breeze was chilly and she got gooseflesh on her arms where her dress didn't cover. The susurrus of the voices still in the barn and the shuffling of feet and jackets being pulled on was comforting.

They had all...

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Another week set. The gelatin capsules were swept into a small wax paper envelope and sealed. The flicking motion of her wrist with the counting stick were practiced and controlled. Khaeris never moved without the fascinating blend of precision and languid grace. People often got lost watching her move, just as she was lost in this steady count-capture-seal work fixture.

These little capsules had a tangy spiced smell and Khaeris enjoyed it. Filling the capsules had taken an hour, now filing them away to be sent to the client would take a few minutes more.

Other paper bags with prescriptions and requests were lined up on the basket on her desk. The cipher she used to label them was something her...

Khaeris squatted in the Eversong grass, leaning forward to better study something in the bush in front of her. Her head cocked and she took a breath. Had it moved? No. It was surely too far along for that. Her imagination. The protective casing was dark, though she could faintly see the shape folded inside. It was becoming clearer by the minute.

It would free itself soon. Oblong and alien. It was caged but nearly ready to 

She wasn't smiling. She was alone, except for the butterfly-to-be. She was fascinated. She had seen this process before, but she was always enraptured by it. It seemed at once defiant and hopeful.

Khaeris glanced back over her shoulder. The Scar was as desolate as it had been since it had cut it's course through the...

The dwarven woman had been the latest. Giving her that half-glance with the half-recognition squint. After this many years, you'd think she'd have gotten used to it by now. But she hadn't. It still sent a slight shiver up her spine and questions she'd spent the last few years trying to avoid would come flashing through. 

"No, I'm sorry, I don't think we've met." Her smile was easy and warm, dimpled with a hint of sheepishness. 'But you probably know the other one. I'm the lookalike. I'm the one that doesn't belong. I'm not who you think I am, I am not who you wanted.'

The dwarven woman had returned the smile, the bewilderment clear on her expression. Khaeris was sure it would have been nice to have met her.

It was supposed to be a good week.

She had returned from wandering and camping in the Eversong woods, haven taken her ram and her sunfur panda for her only company. She’d danced between trees, walked barefoot down deer runs, fished for her supper, woven flower crowns from weeds, and laughed with a crab on the beach. She’d only left a note for the clinic and tacked up a notice at her booth. She had needed it. Needed the time wandering, as only a Traveler could.

It had all been so freeing. It was supposed to help. A reset. Surely she’d feel herself after that.

She’d come back renewed and happy, dimples fairly permanent with her smile and remembering the Tournament of Ages just in time to make it to the Wonderlight Ball. So she ...

(( From a prompt on Tumblr ))

Khaeris slid onto the bench under her fold-down table. Her tea sat nearby, steam dancing and swaying as it tempted, trying to pull her focus from the envelope in her fingers. As much as she loved her tea, the envelope held her rapt.

This was the 135th envelope.

On her first day back in this timeline she had opened a flurry of them. She had been crying and her heart had swelled with emotions she could hardly name at the time. She opened one most mornings, savoring them now. Her heart continued to swell every time she opened one. Even now, months later. Even after reunions and hugs and more tears.

Khaeris let herself remember how displaced she’d felt that day, crossing the Bazaar toward her wagon....

It had felt like a kind of static shock. Startling. Not quite painful. But a surprise, none the less. She had jumped and so had her heart. No one looking at the scene would have understood the woman's jolt. It was quiet in the room Khaeris had been granted. Her alchemy tools were neat on the dresser top. Perhaps not the best work bench, but it was doing the job in a pinch. Mr. Hale had not minded. His generosity was evident in the superbly crafted set of tools in front of her now.

Her mind whirled with the possibilities. Her gaze fell unseeing onto her research journal. She leaned on the dresser while she thought.

No. It hadn't been true static, of course. She didn't know exactly what, but something had happened. Something she was...

Khaeris lay in a bed that wasn't her own. The sheets were rich. The rug she put her feet down on each morning was thick and soft. The curtains over the window were finely made. The window itself looked over the Court of the Sun, not the Bazaar.

Pollux hadn't come home that week. Other Pollux, not her Pollux.

Gone on a business trip. Zandalar? Had he said that? He supplied the military, he'd said, but was that what this trip was?  Maybe somewhere else. She realized should probably be ashamed she hadn't listened closely, but she wasn't ashamed. Despondency came and went in waves.

Though alone every evening, Khaeris could not be disappointed in this. He was too strange. It was both too familiar and too jarring to see his shape. His...

Bronze dragons were masters of time. They could bend, twist, and knead it with the ease of a baker folding dough. They could peer into the future, manifest the past, and shiver the present into paralysis.

They could not, however, Khaeris thought, keep a schedule. Infinity did not daunt them. And calendars did not concern them.

“You were supposed to be here three hours ago.” Khaeris blinked owlishly and finished sitting up, peering into the doorway. She hadn’t been sleeping, but the room was dark and she’d been laying on the bed.

“I assure you, I was not. I think.” The dragon in humanoid form chirruped, not even bothering to sound indignant, but rather cheerful and half-distracted already. A light clap and the arcane...

The blue glow of the usually steady runes strobed in her vision, through no fault of their own.

Ah. It was one of the flickering episodes. The tiny breakfast nook bench she sat on was beneath her, then not, then there, then not--and so on. For the span of about five seconds Khaeris flickered in and out of that reality. Too fast to even have her teacup tumble from where she had lifted it, but not fast enough to pretend it wasn't happening. And happening inside her vardo, where Helal had so painstakingly runed nearly every inch of walls. The episodes were getting stronger.

She reflected on the last few months. The attacks had been ramping up in both frequency and intensity. From a fraction of a second gone, beginning months ago, to...

Her wagon was not particularly accessible.

While getting into the wagon was never a problem; once inside and trying to relax it got more difficult. The prosthetics didn't come off as quickly as they did in his own home, he didn't bother taking them off at all, sometimes. Here, the steps were awkward to the loft, the water closet was too small and there wasn't much to hold onto (never mind you had to climb down the steps again). The floor bounced slightly with your steps and the furnishings were nearly an obstacle course.

The tiny space was hers, but it wasn't welcoming to him.

He hadn't complained; it wasn't like Pollux to complain. He might have been used to figuring things out, but she noticed how much more time, effort, and thought...

Khaeris pushed the needle through the popcorn and smiled slightly to feel the strange texture of the decoration. She wasn't as good at this as Pyraelia was, but she'd strung several lines of the tree decorations. The most humble and mundane of Pyraelia's decorations, but the two had been talking and sharing space for an hour with mulled cider and a plate piled with fruit and cheese.

Truly, there wasn't much left to decorate. Busy so many years with decorating Silvermoon, Pyraelia's home was sweetly but fully decked for the Winter's Veil holiday. The magistrix had such a good eye for these things and Khaeris had seen the holiday warmth the moment she'd arrived. It would be full on feasting and presents and people soon. It should make her...

The first of the freebie art portraits I did to get back into art!

Hope you like it, Eve! 

http://eveshadows.tumblr.com/

Cross posted to CharDiary.com -- check it out!