Light and Shadow✔️

Neva

A/N: I swear the dry monologues are almost done.

When my hands left the wood railing around our house, for the first time in my life I felt really and truly free. My life would be what I made of it and nothing else. I would be the master of my fate and no one would and could take this from me. Because Freedom isn't dependent on your surroundings, I thought at that moment, it's a state of mind.

Flying in a storm is dangerous. There are pockets of air all around, airstreams are volatile and if it is a thunderstorm, the risk of being struck by a lightning is multiplied by a thousand. Exactly for that reason, I had taken to flying every night a storm struck, becoming a master in navigating them while others had to cower in their houses.

I was a blip in the sky, a flicker of black and grey. Beating with my wings as hard as I could, the raindrops tickling and barreling down onto them. On the way through the clouds, my clothes soaked through. But nothing could dim my high spirits. The houses beneath me were shrinking, soon almost as tiny as ants. 

And when I finally cleared the last house of our camp, still being hidden by the pour down, I felt lighter than air itself. As if I had laid down a ton of weight that had held me down. I wasn't foolish enough to wane myself in safety, yet, but the stiffness in my muscles vanished. I relished in the cold air around me, the drops of water in my lashes a miracle, the air around me made to carry me. 

The next weeks would be hard and I knew that, but there wasn't anything I wouldn't do to never lose this feeling again. Never again I would feel bound to the earth or need to worry about the allowances of males.

A grin spread across my face, and suddenly not all the drops on my cheeks were rain. I had to reign myself in so I would scream or whoop in joy, but I couldn't stop the laughter bubbling out of me. The sting of never seeing Ethinius again was so small against this feeling.

I looked behind me once again, the camp already far behind, but not in regret, it was more of a warning for myself. No matter how I felt about my brother, it could've never warranted a life in that prison. Tinus wouldn't have understood. He had seen that I wasn't content with my role as a female, but Ethinius was still convinced that I was overall happy. He hadn't understood that my happiness had no place in this life. Especially since his life would be about what he wanted. What made him happy. He would only have to ask for something and people would fall over themselves to make sure he got it. 

My Grandfather had made that particular part of his life an artform since he had somehow convinced everyone around them that marrying a sister of the Morrigan would enhance our grip on power. Normally not marrying an Illyrian Female was a taboo, to phrase it nicely. But he had been right, the union ensued in my Father's power, which was so wicked and cruel he only had to touch people to bend their will. I had never seen him in battle, but people were talking about blasts of molten darkness. It sounded a bit dramatic to me. My brother had inherited that power, together with a lot of the Illyrian-magic from my mother's family. 

Still, it's not like his life would be an easy one, it would just be very different from mine. So fundamentally different that for him to understand why I wanted to leave, would be like asking a tree to walk and talk.

I flew the whole day with only short pauses. I needed three hours to clear the storm, evading lightning, trying not to freeze to death, but then finally the sun shone in my face. Warming my cold limps, my wings casting a violet shadow, that's when I paused first. I dried my clothes and warmed myself, warding against the cold by drinking a tea I taken with me. While sitting down I thought about my luck. It seemed I had timed the escape perfectly. In the afternoon all the stronger Illyrians were at the training hall to overlook the schooling of their trainees, while often the younger soldiers were left to guard the camp borders.