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*:･ﾟ✧
Smoky tendrils curl around Gaia, threading through her side-swept hair and hooking between her numb fingers. She squints through the screening haze, allowing her feet to lead the way while traversing the rugged terrain of Nevarro's neglected environment. The shiver or sense of walking on air — billowing like a white storm amongst the eerie wind — remains wrenched into the crevices of her mind, a haunting symphony of a hundred eerie presences enveloping her. She's alone, or so she would think. Doubt nags at her.
The echo of a woman's laughter chimes.
"Hello?" Gaia calls out, voice in the wind.
A silhouette is carved from the smoke, standing firm ahead. A waver flashes across Gaia and she's desperate for breath. "Sorry, but I. . .I don't know why I'm here, I think."
The throttling fog of death is whisked aside for a destined moment, and the blank face staring back at Gaia brings her to a swaying halt all of a sudden. A cold quiver reels in her chest, making it seem like a bucket of water has just been dumped over her head and is dripping through the fabric of her armor, staining it like splotches of crimson on fresh-fallen, pure white snow. Tears are clashing against her eyes, rendering her vision blurry yet the woman's face is as she remembers it.
However, bruises nor cutting scars are no longer engraved into her blue complexion. Her luminous eyes, they seem happier, although a hint of sorrow has been chiseled around their soft edges as if dissatisfied.
"Laven—"
A devastated sob trembles upon Gaia as the woman begins to walk away. She chases after the ghost in a maddening pursuit, the air knocked from her lungs, voice crying out, "Stop! I can't be alone again, please! . . ."
Gaia yelps, the surface of something unknown and solid colliding with her in the cloud of black wisps filtering through the air. She tumbles to the ground like a shooting star, the anticipation of hitting anything not striking her mind as a possibility. A pained moan falls from her mouth. She cranes her neck slowly upwards, blinking defenselessly at the broad person blocking her from going any further.
Mando.
Gaia's head hangs low — nothing but a hollow cavern stretching in her chest — even as she forces herself to stand on unsure legs, sniffling and trying to stifle the hiccups catching on her tongue. For some weird reason, guilt twinges coldly at her heart.
"I. . ." Gaia weeps, tears streaming down her scars. "I can't believe I'm breaking apart. . ."
A steady thumb is reaching out for her cheek, wiping a glistening tear away. "You're not."
