Mon Nov 04, 2019 12:17 pm
Evening, 10th Hamis, 2719
A Clearing, Outside Old Rose Harbor
Ava knew that Alyssa was listening to her; she had no doubt that the other woman heard every word. Equally, it was clear that Alyssa was far away just now, very far away. “Yes,” Ava said, quietly, in response to the question about Emmie’s age. She didn’t know what the House was, but she did not think that that sentence had been a part of the question, not precisely.
There was something in the air that held between them, and Ava understood it as well as Alyssa did. There were silences that said more than speaking ever could, because they did not bother trying to put things that could never be explained into words. One understood or one did not, in such silences, but they demanded nothing of either party, nothing but a sort of easy sharing.
This one was Ava’s to break, and she did so with her answer to the rest of Alyssa’s question. Ava shook her head lightly at Alyssa’s pushback, as unsure as she herself was. There was so much on Alyssa’s face; she staggered, her hands shaking, her breath coming ragged. She did not owe Ava an explanation, and Ava knew they both understood that, but she offered one anyway. Ava felt herself only a witness to Alyssa’s pain; the words were not directed at her, precisely, but into the world, some half-longed for broken dream falling to pieces around them.
And then the Wisp returned, although Ava did not forget the aching Alyssa beneath. She knew she never would.
“I understand,” Ava said, gently, in response to the Wisp’s threats. “Thank you for the warning.” She knew, in that moment, that these threats were not for Ava; these threats were not for Ava. They were for Alyssa; they had been on the horse earlier too. That did not mean Ava should ignore them, should refuse them; that did not mean they were nothing. The Wisp meant them, every bloody word, but what she was responding to was not something she had seen, but something she had felt in her own chest.
“She believed she was a wick,” Ava said. “Enough to have tried to cast, when she was the right age.” Ava had nearly forgotten those memories; they were not buried, but it felt like more than a lifetime ago that she had watched Emmie whispering monite in the dark, hopeful and then frustrated, as if the lack of what they could both not feel in the air around her might be overcome with the right words.
“I don’t know,” Ava did not glance back over her shoulder at Emmie like the Wisp did; she did not need to, to see her features. Human or a wick; she might be either, from her features, although not a galdor. She had grown into them, Ava thought, grown lovely, and she was glad to see some of that wildness still in Emmie-the-almost-woman. She was glad, too, that it was still almost-woman; Ava was nearly certain of that now.
Ava would hold there, beneath the wet and musty leaves, as long as the Wisp needed, would respond to any further questions the woman had for the world, although she doubted she could answer them. There was too much she herself did not know. Whenever it was time, Silk would go with the Wisp to rejoin the rest, the smooth mask of her face still in place beneath the bloody scratches; back to Vienda, where at least the dreadful was expected, where at least Ava had begun to learn something of how to fight.