Her head swings and she leans a little heavily against Dovev, trying to sort everything out.
When he mentions that she looks like his mother, her frown deepens, the shadows reaching her eyes and lining the edges of her mouth. The little boy scoots over and then shimmies between them, and Adna shifts to give him space. She doesn’t turn from him, doesn’t shiver or dance away, even though all of the nerves in her body are on fire—every edge lighting up and telling her that something is wrong.
She struggles to keep that from her face. Struggles to maintain her composure, and she is positive that Dovev will be able to see through her flimsy mask. Still, she looks down and attempts a smile for the bright, jovial boy—someone who certainly didn’t ask for this and didn’t ask to be born.
Dovev asks for his mother’s name, the same question that trips off of her own lips, and she bites it back. She reaches across Despair and presses her nose into the curve of his neck. It is a brief touch, just a soft reassurance that she is still here and that they are okay and this is going to be fine.
“My name is Adna,” she finally says, the words tripping off her tongue and into the air. Her brow furrows again and she takes a deep breath of air. “I look like my dad.” She thinks of Vulgaris and something in her chest twists, something unknown taking root in her. “Isn’t that strange?”
If only she knew just how strange a thing like this could be.
Looking down, she finds his sage-green eyes and wonders at how it is like looking at a mirror.
At a lineage that carries her back the generations to the root of it all.
howl at the half moon, radio queen. she's all smoke. she's all nicotine.
@[Despair] @[Dovev]