Timeline/World: Terraphim, current timeline
Characters: Melyar under the name of Melysandre and her mother, whose name has not been spoken in years and seems rather unimportant at this point.
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“Come back to bed, mom. It’s late and we have to find somewhere else to head to tomorrow. This place just doesn’t have anything for us and we can’t afford the room anymore.” The words were spoken softly by the young woman sitting on the bed though she knew they were pointless as they went unheard by the older woman standing by the window, staring outside.
Melysandre eased to her mother and turned to face her, offering the ghost of a smile as she reached out and brushed hair away from that face. Her fingers moved then, shifting to signs. You need to sleep, mom. We have to head out tomorrow to try and find elsewhere to stay at. I know it’s going to be cold out so we really need all the energy we can get. Please try to sleep?
It was heartbreaking. It had been heartbreaking for the years since it had all happened. When their lives as a whole had gone to hell and that had been it. There had been the war, the fighting and then nothing. As if time had stilled for all of a minute and everything had gone dark. Melysandre woken first and looked high and low to find anyone whose features might have rang a bell, anyone who might have seen her mother. Finding anyone had been impossible and finding out just where they were twice as so. Finding her mother however, had come to happen about a week after she had started looking and what she had found had been far from what she’d hoped for.
Wounded, half-blind and back to the deafness she had been born with, it had taken a lot of work to manage more than the simplest of things and the forest had been a fair host for the two of them while wounds were licked and until they could manage more than an hour or so of walking every day. There was a permanent limp to the older woman’s steps, the deafness made it near impossible to find work of any type, which left Melysandre to fend for them, to find money and shelter.
The biggest issue had been their looks. The day they had finally made it from the forest, the first important thing that had been noticed is that they stood out. An issue easily enough fixed, so long as the way used to fit in was not lost. Both women had the ability to change the way they looked, one more thoroughly than the other so energy was focused into two medallions, each set about a respective neck and there it was. The pale skin of humans, the rounded ears of human. The dark hair of one remained while on the other it shifted from white and darkened until it was ever black. The red eyes however turned out to be another issue and were instead changed for blue.
For years now, the medallions had been kept and worn, old coloring and features well hidden from sight. The only downside to the wear of the medallions perhaps was that whatever powers had remained within the two women, they were now dormant and the only way to get in touch with that very power, was to take the the medallions off. Not something they looked forward to.
From the window, the older woman offered her daughter the ghost of a smile and nodded before she turned away from the window and padded to her bed to slip between the covers.
“I miss your voice, mom..” How those words were breathed, a low sigh following suit as she watched the woman settle beneath those covers. “Sort of like I miss dad and the rest of everyone, who knows what happened to the lot of them.”
“I miss how you used to sing me to sleep. And I miss the way it all was before it went to hell and just.. Well I know there’s no turning back so we make do.” The words of course fell to deaf ears and she handled that much well enough. Instead, she moved to the bed and tucked the woman in nice and comfortable. Her health wasn’t all it used to be though perhaps it was for the most basic of rations they had had to live on for the past years. It was hard to find someone willing to let them work anywhere for lengthy periods of time.
Padding about the small room, she packed their things back into the slight travel bag they had, leaving out the cloaks and gloves, the warmer, thicker clothes. The weather was less than pleasant, downright cold and traveling out there to make it to the new town would be difficult though it needed done. At least there were enough rations packed into the bag to manage at least a few days out, depending on how long it would take them.
“Sleep sweet, mom.” Nestling herself next to the older woman, atop the covers, the tugged up the slight blanket she’d kept about and closed her eyes. Just one more night, a few hours of sleep and they’d be out in the cold again.
