DESPOINA
One would think that someone like Despoina would have clung to the chance of a family.
That she would have been so grateful for the chance of a family that she would have done anything to keep it, to cherish it, to let herself be healed wholly by it. Despoina herself thought that about herself, and, if she was being truly honest, she still didn’t understand why it hadn’t been enough for her. They had all been so happy, so loving, so whole—and she couldn’t help but see her own brokenness reflected back at her in its mirror surface. Every second she lingered around them laughing was just a reminder of her silence. Every time she saw Wonder kiss the heads of the children, she heard her own mother leaving.
Eventually, it became too much.
It was weak and cowardly to leave as she did, but she couldn’t stay any longer. So, one night when they had been sleeping, she had simply snuck away. It was simpler in her hellhound form—quieter, stealthier than when she tried to move with her clumsy deer legs—but it didn’t make it easier. She cried for them. For the life they had, the one that she could have had, and for the girl that she could have been.
But even the tears soon left and it was just her.
Just her and the darkness stretching infinitely out in front of her.
She preferred that loneliness for a long time, choosing to stay away from the common lands and the areas where they so often congregated together, but she was ultimately not strong enough to stay away. Strong enough to not return to her adopted family, perhaps, but not away from them all—not forever. Because in the back of her mind, she always saw him. Saw the way that he had stared at her as though he could see straight through her. As though he knew every weak and pathetic thought that simmered in her mind.
And, like an addict, she found herself crawling back to be seen.
So one morning, she rose and walked until she found herself in the place where she guessed him to be.
She kept to the shadows but she knew that she was difficult to hide.
And, somehow, she knew that he would be the one to find her.
I guess the sound of your voice in the aching will just have to do
@[Draco]