I was in the darkness, so darkness I became;
She has thought, on occasion, of trying to remake the Deserts. She knows she is more powerful, now – that whatever happened to her left her imbued with some kind of magic – but she has not yet plumbed the depths of it, has not tested for its boundaries. No, her powers have been for simpler things – gifting the children of the past kingdom and now this one with small tokens. She has not tried to turn the magic back onto herself, to manifest her desires, because that is one of the few cards she still holds to her chest.
She cannot lay them all out yet, because if they fail, it will mean –
Well.
She listens to his story and a part of her tugs in sympathy. While she doesn’t have Anatomy’s affinity for children, she’s been a mother many times over, and had the luxury of birthing all her children within the safety of her kingdoms.
(She thinks, pained, of her dark and orange-eyed son. What kind of mother had she been to him? He would have been better off born in meadow snow.)
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she says. She feels like she should add something else – something like no child deserves that - but she thinks, again, of Garbage, and is afraid the words might ring hollow.
He gives his reasoning then, though she had not asked. But she smiles, and she likes him more for this, that he worries for the children, wants them kept safe.
“I’ll do my best,” she says, “though Anatomy’s always been better with children than I.”
An understatement, perhaps.
“Your children…” she begins, and there is a tightness in her throat she did not expect, and does not want, “what are their names?”
Craft
@[ghaul]