When even stars fade (Open)

[Rowana]

Porita woke slowly, blinking painfully in the sudden light. Her eyes were red and raw from crying. For a brief moment she was confused and muddled, trying to remember what had happened. Then the memories came in a sudden rush of emotion. Jipth. He'd chosen her and now he was gone. Her eyes stung with the renewed onslaught of tears. Porita shook herself, biting her lip until it bled. Jipth had asked her not to cry.

Fighting to keep her emotions from overwhelming her, Porita sat up on the bed. She glanced around blearily, pulling her legs up to hug her knees. Someone had changed her clothes, though the new white garb wasn't much different than her candidate robes. Her hands were clean as well. She was in the infirmary. She recognized it from her first visit, but she couldn't remember coming here. Her last memory was of Jipth, his life blood soaking into the sands through her fingers. The tears threatened again, but she forced them back.

Porita's hand went to her own neck where the scar her husband had left her was still pink and tender. Only a few weeks ago she had faced death, but even that didn't compare to this horrible emptiness in her very soul. Why hadn't she just died that day? Why had they even bothered saving her? For what? For this? Maybe it would have been better if they killed her as well.

Porita leaned her head against her knee, staring blankly at the wall. Her brown eyes were bloodshot and dull. She didn't care what they had in store for her now. Death or slavery, it was the same to her. Nothing compared to overwhelming sense of lose she felt in her heart.

[archenstone]

Asharra came over from the other side of the infirmary. She had been listening out for the patients here, mostly people wounded from the hatching. She carried a tray with a pot and a couple of cups. Taking a moment to look at Porita her medical training rattled away comments in her mind. Words like traumatized and shock went through her mind. She noticed that although the candidate robes had been replaced with something else...the clothes she wore now bore uncanny resemblance. She doesn't need a constant reminder of happened on the sands.

"Porita?" Surely that was the girl's name right? She set the tray down on a small table ad sat across from the young woman. "How about a cup of tea? It's fresh." She offered the girl a motherly smile and poured a cup with out waiting for a response. "Here dear, take a sip." She offered the cup.

[Rowana]

Glancing up slowly, Porita saw the woman coming. She recognized her as one of the healers, though her named was lost in the fog of memory. The last few weeks at Selenitas seemed like a blur and all leading up to the Hatching. Porita started to hope that maybe it was all some kind of nightmare, and she would wake up in bed with Wrolnoh any moment. Yet the hole in her heart was far too painful to be anything but reality. She watched the woman listlessly as she set down her tray and sat on the bed. Porita was hardly in the mood for company, but neither did she feel she could send the other woman away. The deeply routed lessons her mother had forced into her about manners and listening to her elders as well as to the men of her household were too strong to ignore even now.

Which was why Porita took the tea without a word. Truth be told she did like tea, and her throat felt like burning parchment. Gingerly, she took a few small sips and let the warm liquid offer her brief comfort. Briefly she met Asharra's eyes before looking back down at her cup. Her eyes were a touch more focused, but still held a dull and hopeless gaze. "Thank you," she murmured. It was hard to speak, her voice coming like a raspy whisper. Porita rubbed her throat again absently, as if the action could remove the scar as well as the memories.