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[attr="id","pegasuscol"]ZOYECHKA CAELESTRIX

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[attr="id","pegasuscol"]what is the meaning of a name?

ANASTASIYA[break]

they name her anastasiya, for rebirth.[break][break]

she is a tiny thing of ash-pale hair and bright green eyes, the spitting image of her mother and grandmother; she inherits her father's constitution though — his quiet, his solemnity, his careful manner, his winter's heart. she is the symbol of a new life begun in earnest, the dawning of a new day. they bring her into the world with hearts full to the brim with hope and joy, sky-high in the belief that they may raise her to laugh, to sing, to dance, to run, to twirl, to live freely as the wind.[break][break]

asya is a winter child through and through. she catches snowflakes in her chubby child-hands, leaves footprints in the snow in trails criss-crossing all across their yard, breathes in deep lungfuls of the silver-chilled air and delights in the shiver that creeps down her spine. she glides on ice like she was born for it, and maybe she was, with her father's native russian bloodline running true.[break][break]

asya is a kind child, too. she rescues baby birds with broken wings and nurses them back to health. she follows her mother around the house and delights in helping with her cooking. she learns to knit at the feet of her grandmother, one clumsy stitch at a time. at night, when darkness falls and the stars flare to life, she sits in her father's lap and listens to his lilting voice point out the constellations, one by one.[break][break]

their life may be a quiet one, up high in these remote snowy mountains with but a single small town to call home, but it is a happy one, a peaceful one.[break][break]



LENYA[break]
nothing good lasts forever.[break][break]

asya does not know why they must pack up their lives and flee from their home without even a single goodbye, but she is a dutiful child and she hushes when her parents ask her to. the night is their cover, and the soft snowfall erases their footprints from existence — five years of happiness left behind, just like that.[break][break]

later, her father will tell her a story in quiet, solemn tones: a girl in love, a boy she is not allowed to marry, a plan to run away, an angry family who chases them. asya is still too young to know the full, sordid details, but her father has never lied to her, and he will not begin now.[break][break]

she understands enough to know why she must answer to a different name now, to let anastasiya lay beneath the snowdrift now burying their old life and home.[break][break]

she asks her father to choose her new name for her and he picks lenya: because she is his bright and shining light.[break][break]



SVETLANA [break]
memories fade with time. years later, she will find that her recollection of her father has dimmed to the hazy opalescence of a distant dream, a collection of soft impressions hoarded close to her heart: the cadence of a laugh, the warmth of his hug, the silver of starlight lining his flaxen hair, shimmering like a crown.[break][break]

but she will never forget this: the sound of his scream splitting the air, the way his fair face twisted in agony as be stumbled out of the ruins of their now blazing house, carrying with him the acrid smell of burning flesh.[break][break]

he survives. but only for a while.[break]

[break]

they did not know, then, that his would be a long and drawn out end. could infer, perhaps, from his injuries — but hope is a terrible thing, and a blinding one.[break][break]

they flee that very night. it was a murder attempt, after all, even if it had failed, even if they had not a shred of evidence to pin against the perpetrators. not that many might have even cared if there had been — caelestrix is a powerful name.[break][break]

to the city boarders and beyond, lenya remembers stumbling through wildlands and thinking of the thorns tearing jagged gashes into her skirt, instead of her bruised and bleeding feet. remembers thinking about how hard her skirt would be to mend, instead of the fact that they have just lost all save the clothes on their back. remembers thinking mournfully of her tiny bird friends now left behind, instead of how her father had wheezed, had cried out in pain, had forced himself to keep running even though his skin was peeling and his flesh was blistering and his body still burning hot.[break][break]

when they had finally, finally stopped, she remembers grabbing his hand for comfort, only to hear him cry.[break]

[break]

in their tiny hut, in the tiny, far-flung village they had fled to, there are no trained mediwitches. her grandmother knew a few spells, tried her damned hardest for him, but. she was no trained mediwitch either.[break][break]

lenya stays by her father's side, every one of those last few agonising days. she sings him songs. she tells him stories. she maps out for him the stars he had loved so much, that he had so patiently taught her. she changes his bandages and dresses his wounds and drips water into his mouth when he becomes too delirious to even open his eyes. she does not hold his hand.[break][break]

and she is there when he breathes his last, his chest rising and falling and rising no more.[break][break]

[break]


when they move again, she renames herself 'svetlana' in his memory — a girl of stars and light.[break][break]


KSENIJA[break]

the years pass as such: they dare not stay in any one place for long. look what happened, when they did. different names, different faces, different stories to tell; sveta has probably set foot over every city in salem by the time she reaches her teens, and also many of the smaller towns too.[break][break]

she gets used to it: the shedding of an old skin, the donning of a new. another might call her mother paranoid for her insistency on changing their stories each time they move, but sveta watched her father die in front of her. she is not eager to repeat the experience.[break][break]

[break]

even if the trauma remains, the memories do not. a child's recollection is a hazy thing, and the years of rewriting her own history takes their toll. slowly, she forgets: the colour of his eyes, the shape of his face, the names of the constellations he had once pointed out to her so lovingly each night.[break][break]

at some point, she stops naming herself after stars, stops naming herself after light. the reminder becomes too painful for what she has lost.[break][break]

she calls herself 'ksenija' instead — a stranger in her own skin.[break][break]



NATASIA[break]

when she names herself 'natasia', it is with defiance, and resignation, and hope.[break][break]

[break]

they have decided to stop running, to stop moving, to stop shedding their skins. to stop is to risk being caught and killed, but her grandmother is old. she is tired. she is sick and frail and missing home. she wants to die on the soil she was birthed on, in the home she may have left behind physically, but has stayed forever bright in her heart.[break][break]

they make their way back to the vale. her grandmother lights up like a young woman again. her mother is too tired to care. looking at them both, truly looking beyond the familiarity of their presence, natasia sees an old lady with hair completely white and a spine bent over by age, and a woman made haggard by exhaustion, hollow-cheeked and blank-eyed and beaten down by the world. she sees nothing of the proud and aristocratic caelestrix they had started as — nothing but ghosts.[break][break]

it means they are far less likely to be recognised in this city that the caelestrix reside in. a good thing in that regard. but a sad thing too, in the visible toll that life and time has had on them — she does not remember the last time she had seen them happy.[break][break]

she loves them, but she does not want to end up like them.[break][break]

she barely knows who she is anymore, at her core.[break][break]

if they are to make a home once more, to build a life and settle a place like they have not done since her father had died, if they are to risk everything they have fled for because it is no longer worth it to run — then she will do it well. she will do it properly, with all her heart.[break][break]

[break]

natasia is for resurrection: of a wisp of memory, of a girl long-buried, of a tiny shred of hope that she knows will likely be extinguished, but she cradles at her breast nonetheless.[break][break]



ZOYECHKA[break]

they are found, in the end. or, can it really be called a finding if the hunted gives themself up?[break]

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five years is a long time to grow weary, and an even longer time to grow sad. while natasia is finally able to attend school and make friends and grow into herself, her grandmother gets sicker, and her mother more quiet. she worries, of course — how could she not? — but both of them wave her away.[break][break]

her mother can barely look at her, these days. her grandmother mistakes natasia for her mother: her grandmother's daughter. neither tell her anything.[break][break]

she throws herself into her studies. she has always enjoyed learning, and the desire to help people is deeply ingrained in her. even after all these years, she still remembers the blackened flesh of her father's hand, the blistering running up his skin. and with her grandmother growing weaker by the day...[break][break]

she graduates with honours. of course she does — she needs those honours to study at university. for once, she is happy: she can see her future mapping out before her, and she is comfortable in her own skin.[break][break]

she goes home to tell her family. and she does find family there — far more than she'd expected.[break]

[break]

her mother is there in the living room, refusing to meet her eyes. her grandmother lays on the couch, sleeping. but there are others there too, tall and pale-haired and green-eyed, gold threading their clothes and jewels glittering at their necks. she does not recognise their faces, but she knows them instantly — they who have featured prominently in her nightmares and fears: caelestrix.[break][break]

it turns out, they were waiting for natasia. natasia, who has ashen-blonde hair and eyes like emeralds, who has moon-pale skin and too-noble features. natasia, who looks the spitting image of her mother, who is a caelestrix through and through. natasia, who cannot be mistaken as anything else than a caelestrix, even with her diluted blood.[break][break]

natasia, who is visual proof that her mother was not lying — that she really is asteria caelestrix, youngest of three siblings of their noble house, who once ran away to marry a boy unsuited to her stature, who took her mother with her when she left, who bore a daughter of their blood, who vanished into the wilderness and has long since been presumed dead. asteria caelestrix, who has now returned to her once-home to ask to be taken back in — homesick and heartsick and so, so very tired.[break][break]

asteria caelestrix, who has given her daughter up to prove herself once more.[break][break]

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they take all three of them in: they do not give a choice. her grandmother passes swiftly, surrounded by her family, buried in home soil. her mother disappears into one of the many rooms of the vast caelestrix mansion, confining herself all but voluntarily.[break][break]

and natasia? this is a nightmare come true, and she is all alone to face it.[break][break]

they do not like her, the caelestrix — she of half-ignoble birth, she who was raised without acceptable etiquette, she who looks so much like their lost daughter yet acts nothing alike. but she is stubborn, and she is smart. she convinces them that she can learn their manners, can follow their rules, that her noble blood has borne true over her commoner father's line.[break][break]

( it is categorically untrue: she remembers the stench of human flesh burning, of her father's face contorted in agony, of a fire deliberately set. she knows who was the cause, knows who is to blame. she is her father's daughter more than she will ever be a caelestrix. )[break][break]

[break]

they let her go, eventually, to delphi. to continue her studies, she tells them. oracle university is a widely acclaimed institution, worthy of their noble blood. to study medicine, she says, and they agree that it is a prestigious enough vocation for one of name. she has no intentions of leaving, she insists, and because she has been quiet and dutiful and caused no trouble, they allow her to go alone.[break][break]

she renames herself one last time when she reaches delphi. zoyechka — for a life she refuses to allow the caelestrix to control.

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