"We weren't meant to be good. We were meant to survive."
Zerlinda has had a sword hanging over her head ever since her father's disappearance.
With her cowardly mother good as dead, Zerlinda is forced to accept a bargain with Hades, the God of Deat...
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Adalia felt as though today wasn't as bad of a day as it could have been.
But then again, a good or bad day was typically defined by whether or not the pain kept her from getting out of bed. Tentatively, she had risen up that morning, weighed down by the phantom pain in her limbs.
The days without this pain were a scarce thing, nowadays. Whenever she began to feel so much as better, even in the slightest, the pain in her bones and muscles returned in full force, reminding her how far from gone it truly was. Just like a chained phantom, it would likely never leave her.
For years, she'd tried to see healers. The few Unbranded healers who'd accepted to see her had been left at a loss of what to do. They'd prescribed her some herbs and teas, but nothing like what a real, educated healer could provide.
The books lining her shelf had taught her more about the pain than any of the healers had. It wasn't as though there was much else she could do. No one could tell when the pain would return, crashing down on her like a wave destroying everything in its path.
Such unpredictability had eliminated the option of work entirely. The last time she'd attempted to be of use, the pain had taken over her body until she fainted from it. It had been six months ago. Mother hadn't allowed her out of the house since. So she'd turned to the one thing that she could do.
Paint.
She'd learned to paint from her mother when she was little. The swirls of colour on canvas, the creation of new, unseen landscapes, the song resonating through her mind as she gave shadow, light, and dimension to what had once been the spark of an idea in her mind...it was all so beautiful. Like life out of nothingness.
She'd take in and catalog different colours, shapes, and fragments of life for later days and tie it all together with the stroke of a paintbrush on a blank canvas. The silver moon shimmering in the night, the sunset reflecting in the ocean like a golden mirror, the rocky mountains peeking through layers of clouds and biting into endless blue skies like fangs...she'd painted it all.
Adalia strolled around the house for a bit. There weren't many places to go to: the house was divided between hers and Zerlinda's shared room, their mother's room, and their living room. Their kitchen was hardly a kitchen at all-more of a scrap of countertop near the fireplace in the living room.
Her train of thought was interrupted when Zerlinda abruptly walked in, slamming the door shut behind her. Zerlinda, who had spent the entirety of the night roaming the streets, doing God knew what. Too much like the poor excuse of a man their father had been before leaving them, alone in the night.
Adalia took in the sight of her. Of her high cheekbones and rich golden colour, a stark contrast against her own sickly complexion. Their only resemblance was their mass of disheveled, dark curls and large, ocean-like eyes. but unlike Adalia, Zerlinda's color had not been lost over time.
