The clap of thunder woke the dozing dame from her sleep in a shuffling of sheets, the silver cuts of silk unraveling themselves around Olivia as she stirred. Her body was still stiff from sleep when a flash of lightning illuminated her vision: the thin tendrils of navy blue fabric that made up the canopy waved at her from above while around her the glittering net of silver swayed in the wind from her open window. The brunette rubbed away the afterimage of what she had just seen as she rose before her eyes snapped open to reveal orbs of deep sea blue as stormy as that very night.
Olivia rolled her shoulders and stretched her arms before she reached out with a hand to part the veil around the bed. Her fingertips grazed the strands of silver that were cold as snow before she touched them, an applause of chimes accompanying her as she emerged from her bed. Winter winds kissed at the matriarch's bare skin as she slipped into furred slippers. She gathered fistfuls of her sleeping garment -- the robe of silk a dark blue emblazoned with small flowers of silver -- Olivia trudged on forward to the open window that had awakened her.
Grasping the clasp of the window with one hand and keeping her robe snug about her with the other, Olivia shut it close. She lingered by the window for a moment, and watched from the safety of her cabin as another bolt of lightning struck the vast emptiness of the open sea surrounding her. The vibrations from the thunder that followed rumbled through the foggy glass and Olivia felt it all, having been leaning her forehead against the cool glass panes. A breath escaped her lips and fogged the glass further as she closed her eyes and tried to remember the dream that had actually roused her, a dream of river and sticks.
The steam and rays of starlight that didn't quite pierce the thick mist, she remembered. The shimmering fog of silver lazily reached up from the river below, enticing her in the hazy night like a former flame trying to reunite.
She shuddered at that thought, the face of her husband coming to mind, and pulled her face away from the window. Olivia blamed it on the chilly weather and went to warm herself by the fireplace. Pulling her legs close to herself, she sat in a cushioned seat and stared into the flames...
The broken branches beckoned with gnarled knots of long dead willow like a mother does a child, to tell the secrets of the wild: of love, of life, of protection.
"Natali-" She croaked, seeing the visage of her babe long at rest in the crackling fire. Her body was shaking, the grief she once thought gone taking over. Olivia rose, arms around herself in a pitiful attempt to control herself, and scurried away from the fire. Tea. She needed tea to calm her nerves.
The rushing waters around her wave as old friends would greet, their time quick and fleet, before they must part ways.
The kettle in her hand wobbled as her hands shook like those of an elder. Olivia continued on though, fighting back against the tears and grief that wracked her.
The brutal boat battered against the muddy banks of her homestead, the voices and jeers of pirates long dead haunted her head, and the flop of wooden a plank brought her back to the matter at hand as the tea spilled over the sides of the cup. She didn't even notice the scalding drink or the sensation in her hand. It was too much, all of it. Remembering what she had tried so hard to forget. To push back.
Olivia was not disturbed for the next few days, the crew of her ship curious of her case of the winter blues and her personal staff worried. Yet they all bid her command and allowed the widow time to grieve as she made the harrowing return to Ithania; not too different from one she made all those years ago to try and save those she loved.
