[Oriana]

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The path had become smaller and less determined as they progressed. Somewhere along the line they'd set up camp, somewhere along the line they'd wandered in circles, somewhere along the line she felt herself slipping. Slipping into something, perhaps madness, sadness, or even just a deep, rich drink of reality as to what her life had come to. At the end of the day, she'd held onto the one small shred of hope she had left, and that was finding something more than just her son's tail. Time continued to tick, like a stopwatch that rattled and clicked at every waking second as if her time were running out. Time for what? Finding Hircine? Returning home? Oriana couldn't pinpoint the root of this feeling, only acknowledging that it existed and it caused a certain sense of tension running through her bones, her nerves, her core.

That sneaky, toxic thorn still sat atop her head— a pretty little pedestal her head was for such a dominating thing, the truth was she never controlled Saboro, but instead it controlled her. That blood stained, thickly laced and poisonously embedded crown didn't constrict her much more. To her surprise, she figured the weight of the crown to be the reason to call her back, the tether to drag her home and to make her replace her sad, broken stature atop the Temple stairs and loom down on those who broke her law, who broke her trust, who broke her.

Tick, tick, tick, tick—

A wheezy breath escaped her maw as she filled her lungs with air again, eyes aimlessly scanning the endless terrain before her. She'd only ever been within the neutral territory twice in her life; both times as a middle ground to a means of an end. Those ends were either Inaria, Tortuga, or returning home. The longer she remained out here, the longer she felt disoriented, confused and even a deeply setting sense of loss. Her head told her to go one way and her heart told her to go another; the crown whispered promises in her head while her companions told her of other things. Would she go back? Of course, she had to go back— For what would she do if she didn't?

For what did she have if she did?

Closing her eyes now, her world went calm for a second. In the middle of nowhere she needed to find her rooted space of peace, her beacon, her sanctuary. The only place she'd ever known to be that was Saboro, but until her endless page of scribbles and rewrites and redoes, she needed to find a temporary, present solution; not one far off that could be a falsehood, anyway.

"Did you find anything?" Oriana called out, almost to no one until she had to remind herself Ciello was nearby. Her spaciness started to become a bit too obvious for her liking; it was clear as day that she had no idea where she was going or what she was doing. Who are you fooling, Oriana? "I think maybe, we... we went too far." Her voice wasn't panicked, but it was concerned. Too far for what, exactly? The Sabora swung her head as if to reject her internal questions out of her mind. Too many voices, too many noises— All of the leaders of her passed pressed their weight on her head as if to scream YOUR PLACE IS IN SABORO. YOU NEED TO GO BACK—

"What if we don't find him?" She managed to rasp, rhetorically, her eyes scanned for Ciello although she didn't expect him to answer.

(She didn't want him to answer.)

Tick, tick, tick, tick—

The breeze brushed passed her face and she blinked a few times to make sure Ciello was still standing there.

He was. He had been here this whole time. He left with you, remember? Do you regret him coming? Do you think he regrets it?

Oriana remembered she needed to breath again, and took a seat, after realizing her legs were shaking in weird ways. "Maybe we should go back." (Where Oriana? Home? Camp?) She spoke as her heart fluttered, anxiously.

---

[Ciello]

The days flooded together beyond the jungle. They became the sum of their parts. The steps they took. The miles they traversed. The bones of their meals. The hollows they called home. He was familiar with this sensation—travel, the road, the way days ceased to matter so much as distance from the next goal. He could tell that, for the most part, his companions were not. For the first time, that gave him an edge, and in time he centered himself precariously upon it. It was a sensitive balancing act, and he knew too well that any one thing could break his concentration. He really was the outlier here, in more ways than one. He searched with them still, and when day broke, he ventured into the beyond with the person who had been his friend.

With the others he engaged in idle chit chat, but conversations with Ori had never been idle. They seemed like it, on the surface, but he’d always known he was tangoing with disaster. It had been stupid to push his luck, but he’d done it anyway. She’d set him up for failure, and now he was here. It had hurt, in a way, to realize that she’d lied—or… well, at least, she hadn’t been forthcoming with the truth. Still, he’d given very little to her. It was stupid to expect anything but the same in return. But minds aren’t always logical and hearts don’t know the meaning of the word. It hurt, regardless of it all. He didn’t creep towards the barriers she held around her like tempered glass. He wondered, when they settled at night, if she noticed his distance and held it against him.

Why would she? This venture wasn’t a joyride, but a hunt for her son. He ought not dwell on the blow he’d taken, nursing it like injured pride. There was something bigger at stake, and so he poured himself into the search for the unknown, overturning stones and following tracks to badger dens. Find her son, he willed himself to accomplish. She lied, crept his intrusive thoughts, like centipedes fleeing through the undergrowth. There was no shaking them, so he learned to live with them while hoping the lost boy would materialize as readily.

He did not. They continued to look.

These woods were only unfamiliar in the way woods always were—ancient and unimaginably large, it was easy to travel hours and find yourself returning to the same place. He took to scraping his horns against trees, marking their passage with great gouges through bark. He’s walked not this road, but roads like it—find your way, one way or another. Find the boy. This was not aimless amble. It was not fleeing the inevitable—at least, he hoped. This story would have a beginning, climax, and end. He puts his energy towards making his mark on another tree. The Sabora calls. You lied, his mind responds.

“More of the same,” his mouth opts for instead. Leaves, trees, dirt, rocks. He shakes bits of bark from his head, glancing off in the direction from where she called. He should go to her, he knew. But instead he carries on. That was the smart thing to do, of course. They would cover more ground if they stayed apart. That was what he chose to keep telling himself. “He had a head start,” he reminds her as she worries the air with her teeth, wringing nothing from it. “Is it possible,” he finds himself adding, though he knows he should be silent, “That he returned home?”

Perhaps someone should go check?

He still doesn’t see the whole picture. He still doesn’t grasp the gravity of the situation. All he knows is the forest, the road, the mission, and that SHE LIED. Birds sing, for a moment, above his head. She cries again to the forlorn wood, and they burst into flight, away, away, away. He follows them with his eyes for a moment and the horrible, smarter parts of him suggest that he should do the same. Remember, Ciello. You don’t forget, Ciello. You know what happened last time, Ciello. Stupid, foolish, regrettable boy. You are doomed to repeat your own mistakes.

The better part of him sighs and turns from his plotted course into the wind. He fights his way through the vicious gale to the heart of creation. He pushes aside what he knows is jealously guarded fear and seeks its fountain. She was afraid, too. But, not of him. She was afraid for the child she’d lost. He wondered if she was afraid for the daughter she left to die. That was another intrusive thought. He shakes it but it hangs on. They were so heavy. Did she know? Did she feel them too? “It’s a big forest,” he tells her as she looks straight through him. “All we can do is try our best.”

She hadn’t wanted him to answer, as if he’d ever had a choice.

She clears her eyes and finally finds him. He can see the shift. Could she see his? How he shifted on his feet and cut his eyes from hers once she sought his out? The slight dip to his head—difference, but it was more than that, too. He tried to blend into his surroundings to avoid her behind her palace and her guards—perhaps that was why she had such trouble finding him when she looked. “I think,” he ventures, slowly, as if he knows where his wicked mouth will land him, “That’s not for me to decide.”

He falls to silence. The birds sing, further off now. The weather was changing, and birds always knew before the wind shifted how the seasons would lie. It was in their nature. His nature went against all logic. It was a dumb dog that returned again and again to the person that hit it. “Ori—” he stops, clears his throat. “Sabora.” Did it sting her as much as it bothered him to say it? “If I may say it… wouldn’t it be a good idea to send someone back? To check? To bring more people to search?” I don’t mean to undermine you, he nearly adds, though it sours in his mouth, withers, dies. She didn’t want him to bow to her, but things had changed. He didn’t know how he was supposed to act in the days after. She wasn’t just Ori anymore.

They both knew that.

[Oriana]

---

My heart is weak
Tear it down piece by piece
Leave me to think
Deep in my structure

The distance was a quiet reminder of just how far he was. Practicality told her this was good, they could cover more ground if they were separated. But emotionally, vulnerably, Oriana wanted the opposite. She wanted to grab onto Ciello, the most vivid fragment of a lie that could never be true. A lie that she never expected to turn into quite the length it had gone. She should have learned by now, after all the burns on her heart and arrows in her back that things didn't go the way she thought. Oriana was never the puppeteer, but the puppet with a crown. Inhaling, she tried to find placement in her stress, having little realization at first to the internal struggle Ciello was experiecing right now. Of course, why would she care? Her son's life was on the line here, and ultimately, theirs too.

He wouldn't understand.

“More of the same, He had a head start, Is it possible, That he returned home?”

But she was grateful for his help, nonetheless. Inhaling, Oriana retreated from her rooted post and start to move back toward him, searching for his connection and trying to disable their distance. The situation was unique, staggering even, as she shouldn't expect the same level of whatever they'd been cultivating in Saboro. Friendship? Oriana continued to question what that word even meant; she thought she'd known a lot about bonds and love and family but it turns out she'd been wrong about all of it. For now she avoided mentally labeling Ciello has anything, just simply appreciating his existence in her struggles and focusing on his words, however burning and perhaps ill they were. He was saying all the things she didn't want to hear, or rather, he wanted to shut out and tell him they weren't possible.

So she did.

"He wouldn't have left if he was going to return." Vague and cryptic, just to add to the mess of the half-pieces Ciello knew about Saboro. Oriana needed to remember he didn't understand the culture. He didn't even understand her. But she was selfish, she was focused and she was busy trying to soothe her own concerns and she continued to suck whatever calming aura Ciello gave. For a while she'd never even asked how he was doing, why he even came, whether or not he was going to stay... Perhaps again, she didn't want to hear his words. He was a multitude of things that managed to strike the Queen in several ways, some she would pointedly avoid if necessary, for her sake; not his. Selfish, selfish. He was foolish and she was selfish. What a pitiful combination.

“It’s a big forest, All we can do is try our best.”

Oriana sucked in the bitter air between her teeth as she filled her lungs with near defeat. Although oddly, the closer she got to Ciello, the less anxious she felt. It was almost a guilty feeling, using him again as a source of a lie and a comfort of nothing. Oriana knew, always pretending and always playing, but she knew it was no good. If they were going to survive together as traveling companions, as friends, as anything— she needed to cut these ties to this demon of a lie and see where it takes them. Where is takes him. He could leave, he could always leave; he didn't have the same deep, bloody rooted lock to Saboro as she did. As Naviti, as Scindere, as anyone. He was a nobody in the ominous, unrelenting eyes of Saboro. But she? Well, she was the Sabora. What a better slab of meat for betrayal and example as she.

Her heart ached and her breath would mimic jagged lines if they were drawn out before him. Her eyes tried to look for his as her chest rattled like a malfunctioning machine, seeing the guilty truth in his eyes. He didn't even need to speak. Her paranoia and anxiety were surrendering themselves, a hollow glance as he continued to speak. For a moment she didn't even hear what he'd said, something about a decision, something about her. It was always her. Selfish, victimized girl who had someone who was nothing of the tainted monsters of Saboro, but instead an outsider who she'd taken and played house with. Someone who reminded her she didn't need to be anyone but a princess. But she wasn't a princess, she was a Queen, a Queen who'd left her pedestal to look for her son—

No, it was more than that.

There was always more.

“Ori—Sabora.”

"Don't call me that." She snapped, unintentionally, unexpectedly. It did more than sting, it burned, it suffocated— it was like poison on her skin and defeaning ringing to her ears to hear his voice say that word. He was never her Sabora. It wasn't going to start here. She quaked, quietly, like the low rumble of the volcano. Her eyes expected to see fear in his eyes, if not that, perhaps shock. Almost in tandem, simple breathes after he'd spoken again did she manage to add on.

“If I may say it… wouldn’t it be a good idea to send someone back? To check? To bring more people to search?”

"I'm not your Sabora." His words, practically floating over her head. He was trying so hard to be helpful. He was still here, standing before her, willing to help her despite the confusing mess that was her lie. Her lies. "I can't go back. We can't go back. You—" She felt her lungs stab her and seize. Breath, Oriana. He's not hurting you. You're hurting yourself. "You can. You can go wherever you want."

He didn't understand. Of course he didn't, because she didn't want him to.

"Saboro won't help us. They'll kill us on sight, or worse, torture us and leave us to die. If we are going to find Hircine we have to do it ourselves." But you're Queen, she can hear a voice say. They'll do anything for you. Right? "I'm not your Sabora. I'm not a princess. I'm not just Ori. I'm Oriana, I'm a mother, I have a m-" Her voice hitched, she paused, perhaps at this point she'd registered whatever reaction he'd given her at this point. Did he look away? Did he seem afraid? Did he get mad, did he... did he...? "I had a mate, I had a lover, I had a kingdom, I had family."

"Saboro doesn't give, it only takes." Do you understand? No, there is still pieces missing. "It would have taken you, too."

Perhaps a Queen isn't as far off from her kingdom as one would seem.

But I need some sleep
You've taken my breath away
Now I want to breathe
Cause I cannot see what you can see
So easily

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