![[Sili] A Mind is a Terrible Thing Empty](https://2img.net/i/empty.gif)
by https://youtu.be/kdHnKKA--qc
The pain Sili felt was previously unimaginable to her, as if someone had ripped her stomach and her heart straight from her body. Her head pounded. Her ears rang so persistently that it became white noise to her. Her jaw clenched, teeth biting down on themselves without end.
'Paranoid' was a word occasionally used to describe the amount of caution the Amethyst practiced, but it paled in comparison to her thoughts now. Her eldest daughter had been turned against her; her mate failed to understand her; she had yet to see her son since their escape from Lyrica; her youngest daughter rarely spoke to her; her youngest's mate was the godson of her deceased, yet still beloved Bronze. It was all going downhill in her mind, her life was falling apart, and madness had begun to take residence in a psyche that had barely been held together by a fragile stillness to begin with.
To top it all off, the metallic voice of Vetis continued to sound in her mind, gentle and loving as she'd remembered. It had tried to calm the wild, quaking rage of her temper before she'd lashed out at Fo'uh, but Sililuuth had failed to listen - and she failed to see and feel the crackling of electricity that had begun to form around her body in her moments of distress.
At least... not yet.
At the water's edge on the surface below, the Amethyst seated herself, having found a quiet, obscure, tiny patch of land nestled tightly against a series of cliffs. She turned not to her mate, not to her children, and not to her friends - but to the ocean.
"Why are you showing me these things?" She spoke through clenched teeth, her features otherwise devoid of anything more aggressive than a crushing agony that continued to tear her apart. "Was it not painful enough to have to return to the place where I lost you? You had to come back to Lyrica and now this place with me?"
<No, Itov,> came the voice that sounded in her ears. She paused to look around, even if she knew better: he wasn't there. Not where she could see him. <That is not why you're seeing them.>
"Then why?" For a brief, flickering moment, her defeat took on a more pathetic look, her eyes wide and childlike and pained, more like a heartbroken hatchling than the grown leader she'd been raised and conditioned to be. This behavior failed to make her case any better: to on-lookers, she would have looked as though she was talking to herself... and maybe she was.
<Ki'fel needed to know the truth, and you were the only one left who could provide him with the answers that he needed->
"Why didn't you stop me from showing him the worst of it?"
<I tried, Sililuuth.> There was a pause as her plum eyes filled with tears; the tone of Vetis' voice softened considerably. <I tried to stop you before you showed him.>
She seemed to accept this. A dead stare remained on the undulant surface of the water.
"I've begun to lose everything, just as I'd always feared." An unusual quiver in her tone caused her voice to crack as she kept her gaze locked on the water.
<You are not losing everything.>
"What would you call it?"
<Change.>
For a time, she said nothing else - but in the darkness, with the occasional flicker of moonlight along the water's surface, she swore she saw a glimmer of familiar Bronze scales. Her tears finally began to fall, plentiful and rapid, dropping straight from the violet apples of her cheeks onto her lap. Her sobs came out uncontrollably, a quick and abnormal crackling flicker of static shooting over the surface of her form.
"I should have gone with you; I should have joined you at the bottom of the ocean!"
It was there that Sililuuth remained, alone and seemingly without concern about being discovered. With minimal sleep, food, and drink, it took only a brief period of acute distress for her body to reach exhaustion, slumping over into an uncomfortable position on the ground. She entered a dreamless sleep - dreamless, that is, save the memories that continued to haunt her mind.
The pain Sili felt was previously unimaginable to her, as if someone had ripped her stomach and her heart straight from her body. Her head pounded. Her ears rang so persistently that it became white noise to her. Her jaw clenched, teeth biting down on themselves without end.
'Paranoid' was a word occasionally used to describe the amount of caution the Amethyst practiced, but it paled in comparison to her thoughts now. Her eldest daughter had been turned against her; her mate failed to understand her; she had yet to see her son since their escape from Lyrica; her youngest daughter rarely spoke to her; her youngest's mate was the godson of her deceased, yet still beloved Bronze. It was all going downhill in her mind, her life was falling apart, and madness had begun to take residence in a psyche that had barely been held together by a fragile stillness to begin with.
To top it all off, the metallic voice of Vetis continued to sound in her mind, gentle and loving as she'd remembered. It had tried to calm the wild, quaking rage of her temper before she'd lashed out at Fo'uh, but Sililuuth had failed to listen - and she failed to see and feel the crackling of electricity that had begun to form around her body in her moments of distress.
At least... not yet.
At the water's edge on the surface below, the Amethyst seated herself, having found a quiet, obscure, tiny patch of land nestled tightly against a series of cliffs. She turned not to her mate, not to her children, and not to her friends - but to the ocean.
"Why are you showing me these things?" She spoke through clenched teeth, her features otherwise devoid of anything more aggressive than a crushing agony that continued to tear her apart. "Was it not painful enough to have to return to the place where I lost you? You had to come back to Lyrica and now this place with me?"
<No, Itov,> came the voice that sounded in her ears. She paused to look around, even if she knew better: he wasn't there. Not where she could see him. <That is not why you're seeing them.>
"Then why?" For a brief, flickering moment, her defeat took on a more pathetic look, her eyes wide and childlike and pained, more like a heartbroken hatchling than the grown leader she'd been raised and conditioned to be. This behavior failed to make her case any better: to on-lookers, she would have looked as though she was talking to herself... and maybe she was.
<Ki'fel needed to know the truth, and you were the only one left who could provide him with the answers that he needed->
"Why didn't you stop me from showing him the worst of it?"
<I tried, Sililuuth.> There was a pause as her plum eyes filled with tears; the tone of Vetis' voice softened considerably. <I tried to stop you before you showed him.>
She seemed to accept this. A dead stare remained on the undulant surface of the water.
"I've begun to lose everything, just as I'd always feared." An unusual quiver in her tone caused her voice to crack as she kept her gaze locked on the water.
<You are not losing everything.>
"What would you call it?"
<Change.>
For a time, she said nothing else - but in the darkness, with the occasional flicker of moonlight along the water's surface, she swore she saw a glimmer of familiar Bronze scales. Her tears finally began to fall, plentiful and rapid, dropping straight from the violet apples of her cheeks onto her lap. Her sobs came out uncontrollably, a quick and abnormal crackling flicker of static shooting over the surface of her form.
"I should have gone with you; I should have joined you at the bottom of the ocean!"
It was there that Sililuuth remained, alone and seemingly without concern about being discovered. With minimal sleep, food, and drink, it took only a brief period of acute distress for her body to reach exhaustion, slumping over into an uncomfortable position on the ground. She entered a dreamless sleep - dreamless, that is, save the memories that continued to haunt her mind.
