feel our hearts leap ; reticence day 3

ELETTRA.

"IRIS!" The words echo; and they always will. The sound of a cannon firing syncopated with the sound of my heart, and it yearns for company that I recognize. I'm left with the girl she grabbed onto the leg of, and she never let go. It's a shame that I never asked for her name; she's just Summit to me. I've had enough of running from trouble and leaving those I love behind - Iris I felt a push from behind, and glanced to see her disappear into the smoke, then to find her; to find her dead.

Hearts, they're all little shattered pieces. The tinkle sound of crayons falling from the sky seemed a delirious thing only 3 days ago; in this place it's a sound I only know by spite and nothing else; someone likes to see me suffer with the falling of yet another Eckhart. And this one was red. I draw the one shape, the one organ which I know beyond anything else.

After all, intuition knows what is broken is understood the most; that makes me an expert of the highest degree, the broken gap in my chest the signature of the fingers of loss brushing against it. I drew a heart, correct to all the little details on the tree, aorta sticking out at the top, as close as 3 dimensional as you can get in a damn crayon, the bark of the tree jolting the tip around into a mess. It forms a mass, and it falls, smashing like ceramic tiles, into shards, shaped like pretty little knives. I suppose shattered edges can hurt.

I reach up to the tree, and pull a branch out, then another. We have to make a fire at some point, thirst is starting to build up to something almost foreign. I fumble around into my pockets, find the pink flask and pull it out. It's definitely not water, but what's the worst that can happen? If it killed me, it'd be some kind of mercy after the days that came before, legs running for my life. And I sip.

And, I went blind, and numb from heat. It was like molten lava, smoldering and warping to abhorrent forms. "SUMMIT! CAN YOU SEE... WATER LIKE ANYWHERE?" Mumbled words; a direction perhaps. The branches I pulled off the tree lie discarded, water the only path that I know. Death would have been a small mercy: now it seemed natural. Tears streamed down my face; for the first time in what feels like months it is not for loss - it is for burning pain.

I trip and fall into the water, and it greets me; solace from the pain that I held for a minute, careful not to drink any of it; I really don't want to get some kind of infection, wouldn't end too well. If I am to fall, I want it to be in a fight, like everyone before; I don't want to let my family down, leave regret about collapsing from an invisible warrior. And I fill up that flask, the devil inside, well, it left a trail back where I ran from. I wouldn't be surprised if they fell through the other side of this dream world.

Wandering back, sheepish look plastered on my face, hair stuck and not matted: that's a first since the glass tube opened and we were falling from the damn sky; "Guess I found water, huh?" Iris trusted her, a small mercy in this place: it wouldn't be too hard to trust her when she didn't even try to fight us. "I'll make a fire, looks like we need some fresh water."

- elettra collects fire wood.
- elettra drinks ghost pepper hot sauce, runs into nearest puddle / water source and jumps in.
- elettra fills up now empty water container with water
- elettra makes fire w/ firemaking
- elettra purifies water using fire
- elettra drinks water
- elettra recollects water and purifies it with fire.
- honestly sorry for spamming all the things

[ :hell_rave: ]