baruch hashem [etro, vanquish]

[etro]

etro --

in the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon,
I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom

Her mother had asked, and of course Etro had said yes. She would have done it even if Yael had said that it would be dangerous. It was the least the mare could do after all that she had done wrong—and if there was even an inkling of a chance that it could be successful, it would be worth all of the risk. So she had embraced her mother and told her that she would meet her at the beach tomorrow. And then she had gone to where she slept every night. Not a home, not the desert, but at least a quiet, safe place to rest her head.

In the morning, nerves tightening her stomach, she had ventured to the beach—the first time that she had ever visited it. The sand is both achingly familiar and wholly different, but she cuts through it easily, finding joy in the rolling land beneath her. It seemed fitting that this is where her father would be found again. Because he would be found, she had to believe that. She had to believe in her mother’s power.

She closes her eyes when her mother tells her what to do, when she tells her not to worry (a kind gesture, but an empty one—when would her daughter not worry?), and when she shifts her attention from this world to the next. She feels the departure like a punch to the gut and her breath shakes, but she knows this is for the best. She knows that she has to let go of her magician mother if she wanted to find them both.

So, with silver-bell voice soft, she counts her breaths. At the twentieth, she whispers: “Yael.”
And then she counts again. Waiting for her parents to return to her.

-- vanquish and yael's forgotten trait-negating princess --