this time I’m torn, please wake me if I lose that face
search in these eyes: there’s still fire in the darkness
"I didn't like you and I had vanished. How is that at all wonderful?"
He was sharper and swerved away from her, silent. Her eyes hardened warily, but she paused to wait for him, part of her hoping he wasn't jumping to some conclusion that it was her fault somehow that he'd lost his memories. After a time, he turned to her again, addressing her question regarding what his plans were.
She listened patiently, catching glances of sunlight playing over his creamy skin, his glorious wings shuffling. She had only ever felt her son's wings, and her youngest adopted son's, and the curiosity whether Tiphon's were just as sleek or just as soft flew across her mind unbidden.
"We will conquer this plague first and make everyone comfortable." Her eyes returned to him abruptly because she had not been staring. For very long, at least. "Once Beqanna is healed, and if this island survives, then we will figure something out." He said we and she knew that meant all those on the island, just as considerate as he had been before with the Ischians.
"In the meantime, I want to know everyone. I want to see the families I'm trying to help." That was certainly the Tiphon she remembered, even having been only three years or so old at the time. She was twice that now. His softening features somehow softened hers too. Just a little. Until he spoke again and her eyes widened just slightly, her pulse quickening.
"And I want to know the real you. This is only a shell of what you were."
She looked away quickly. Did he even know how right he was? Was it just a guess or had he remembered something about them? She hoped he hadn't remembered. She hoped she still had a sliver of a chance to have a better relationship with him, even if she was only half a girl anymore.
"Maybe I have forgotten me too," she replied quietly, sparing a glance at him beneath long lashes then looking away again, gazing over the canal he had paced to. "I don't know how to be me anymore. I think that girl may have died a long time ago." She was so miserable to be around, each word out of her mouth proved it. Her son had gotten the brunt of it with his naming. Kharon. The ferryman to death. And yet he'd always been so bright and happy until recently.
"What makes you think there is more to me," she turned her head to challenge him, a wry smirk trying to tilt her mouth in one corner and her brow lifting in a graceful arch. The idea was quietly amusing, that he'd think she had anything more to her than this terrible appearance and her dreary manner. She hoped that wasn't hope sneaking in to kick her down and crush her.
She was stuck like this. She would always be this way.
