[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/yxK9VOX.png[/img][/center]
[sub]Location: Walking back towards town[/sub]
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Elara held onto the question for contemplation, almost similarly to how Orion had on the walk to the temple. However, unlike the man whose emotions felt invisible, there was something rippling beneath the surface of the snow haired woman. Céline hadn’t enough time to fully understand the emotions before Elara’s answer came as sharp as glass. It wasn’t the tone that the woman had employed, but the residual feelings associated with it. Céline had unintentionally touched a nerve and the subconscious, like a porcupine, flexed its quills in self-defense.

Initially she had assumed that her door to a conversation had closed and that the remainder of the walk would be left to their chorus of crunching snow. The quills, however, receded as Elara shared her mind, her words carefully chosen, telling a tale of spirit, resolve and determination. In an odd way Céline found her mind wandering back to her youth, back to that arid desert. Living in her caravan meant food and water were scarce, and homemade crafts had to be traded for meager scraps and copper pieces. They never stayed in one place for long, prayer was mandatory, and anything deemed ‘sinful’ was met with a twisted sense of discipline. It was a difficult and harsh way of life, but the elders would say, ‘Every hardship brings us closer to the goddess’.

Most would probably claim those people…her people to be mad for choosing to live the way they do, Céline certainly felt that way at one time. It already was a difficult life to live and the way she and others in the caravan had been treated only made her time there more arduous. That chapter in her life had long been closed, and while she could never forgive the monsters or their crimes, she could respect the way they lived, regardless of their moral ambiguity

A subtle warm feeling brought Céline out of her thoughts, her eyes scanning for the source. She found it between the two handmaidens. Elara had reached out to connect with her companion before pulling away. The moment had been brief, but Céline hoped that it maybe would put the other young woman more at ease. If nothing else she could continue to talk with Elara in the hopes that maybe Ramona would come out of her shell. The blightborn made eye contact with the snow haired handmaiden and gave an apologetic smile.

[color=60cf11]“There are probably a thousand other words I could have used to ask how you felt about Dawnhaven, and in my infinite wisdom, I chose ‘enjoy’.”[/color] It was ridiculous, enough to turn her smile into laughter. The realization had caught her off guard, not enough to send her into a raucous fit, but a hearty chortle.

[color=60cf11]“Where I come from, home was never the same place for long,”[/color] Céline mused to Elara as she regained her composure. [color=60cf11]“No more than a few days of fasting, of worship before we all continued the grueling trek through the desert.”[/color] The wind picked up briefly, the cold air lashing at her face as snow mimicked the sands she was so familiar with. If she had not become a blightborn, Céline wondered how she would have fared against these arctic gales. [color=60cf11]“It is a strange feeling to me, to be in a place so eerily similar, yet vastly different.”[/color]

She looked ahead, the buildings slowly cresting over the horizon. [color=60cf11]“It really does seem like on the surface that it’s just some barren, half-built town, but deep down there is something building itself up stronger.”[/color] Celine hadn’t noticed it before, not when she initially arrived in Dawnhaven and had barricaded herself in. It wasn’t until sometime after that she felt it, a soft hum that seemed to come from the very town itself; almost like a heart beat. [color=60cf11]“Theres a will to survive here, a defiance to not go quietly, almost like a tree has taken root on a great boulder and refuses to die.”[/color] She smiled, [color=60cf11]“and if I do my job right as a doctor, hopefully no one else will have to and something beautiful can grow here.”[/color]
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[sub]Interacting with: Elara [@Qia] and Ramona [@enmuni][/sub]