my soul is in the sky
Flying without the use of her wings, floating along to the next place asleep on a cloud – these were everyday things to her. Things she did without thinking, summoning clouds as naturally as others swat at flies with their tails. But the idea of family, something so natural to anyone else, was a dream she never truly let herself dream. Yet here, before her, is an uncle she’d never known. He is quiet while she finds her voice, waiting for the question she finally manages to voice. It is a miracle they don’t all coming spilling out like a tsunami, drowning them both in the sea of questions that race through her mind and flit across her eyes.
He begins, and she listens with rapt attention and yet her mind races as well. His story is long and detailed and true. It is so much more than Draconis could ever tell her, so much more than Rae had ever dared hope to know. He tells her of his birth and his life outside of Beqanna. He tells her of her grandparents - grandparents - and an aunt she’d also never known. An aunt, it seems, that didn’t have a good relationship with Rhy or Leander, and she wonders a bit at how anyone could not want the family they are given. Then again, so many don’t understand just what they have. It is far too easy to take for granted the things you simply have. Rae has never had the luxury of simply having family though.
Then he tells her of her mother. Rhy. Her eyes water as he describes the mother she doesn’t remember but imagines in her mind anyway. Draconis had told her enough to paint the picture, and Rae is sure her picture is close enough though she always thought it was too sparkly, too clean, too perfect. Yet to hear Leander as well, she wonders if that was simply her mother. A bright flash of lightning, dangerous and beautiful and impossible, all bundled into one.
Rae has never imagined that her mother even knew Rae was still alive, that she could watch from another life, that she could love a child she hadn’t been alive long enough to know. Yet his words strike home, and she’s quiet for a long moment, not trusting herself to speak. He keeps going though, sparing her from having to say anything regarding her mother at all now, and he’s almost nervous as he extends an olive branch that Rae cannot fathom rejecting.
This morning she’d had only her twin, long lost to some other land where her earthbound brother belonged. Now, suddenly, she had an uncle who wanted to be her uncle, an aunt that might not want a damn thing to do with her but at least she was family (and better yet, family drama, something so impossibly farfetched to a girl with no family at all), and stories of her mother and grandparents and a history she never knew belonged to her.
A smile curves her lips, her eyes lighting up. “Only,” she begins, with the characteristic wildness of the wind that was her makeup, “if we get those storms of yours under control so we can go flying together.” Her eyes twinkle with mischief, so like her mother in a way she will never know. “What are you, anyway? I’ve never felt anything quite like it.”
rae
@[Leander]
Use of mild power playing is allowed; no injuries without permission