Aithniel wanted to cry, but crying was for girls. Too young to understand the gravity of the situation, her abandonment as a child, crippling guilt and love, she still felt the weight of such things. They bore down on her like a giant's foot, shoving her into the ground and pressing on her lungs. She hitched in a breath, not realizing that she had not been breathing at all. Swallowing hard, she pressed her ears back, anger and violence the only mechanisms she had learned to cope with the empty void inside. Whatever was in this stranger's eyes was so foreign and heavy that she had to look away.
The fox jumped from her back and to the ground, and Aithniel watched with suspicious curiosity as he approached. One ear pricked forward to listen to this stranger speak, introduce themselves. Then, it hit her all at once. So... this one and the fox had been there to make sure she didn't die. But, this was not her mother. Aithniel had been born from an egg and just... left there... to die. How long had she wandered through the desert, parched? How long had it taken her to reach the meadow?
Everything was such a blur. A big, horrible, shitty blur.
She inhaled shakily again, not even sure of what to say. Certainly she could muster up some sharp, angry retort, but Aithniel wasn't sure that she deserved it at all. What responsibility did this Tandavi have? None, really. Those sharp, silver eyes danced between the pair, and she cleared her throat. "Yeah, I... kind of remember," she said, face still twisted into a painful grimace.
What she wanted to say was stuck between two books of emotion, partially hidden. She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer, but at the same time she had to know. So much of her life had been built around not knowing, of being abandoned, but she still craved love and attention even if it was anger. Maybe that's why Illynx had been so appealing. Maybe that's why she acted out all the time. At least people noticed.
"Do you know... who my mother is?"
@[Tandavi]
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