you said you'd wait forever, but I blinked and the world was gone
It matters little, if at all that Heartfire speaks in such a way… for, as she imagines it: Briella knows above all that this is merely her way. She, however, pushes back the memories of her past… of the voidal world and of the horrors therein. Quiet and calm, older but not so much… Briella finds herself comforted by the consistency and by the affection and part of her cannot help but wonder how long before the darkness snared her back and before the world turned upside once more.
Such it was she listened and calmly tilted her head: ears perking forward. “I… you?” she blinked, stammering on her words as if ice-water had crashed into her veins and her eyes wider now. “It means so much.” she confirmed, continuing after a breath.
“My whole life I spent it floating between here and the dark… constantly looking for someone or anyone to call my family. Mine, they… abandoned me, and when Dovev found me I was just coming back from the other side. Everyone was gone, and the world was so different. He… was- is, my father. Yet? The darkness took me again and he was gone when I got back. I thought he had left me like the others.”
She struggled at the thought, her mind racing. “So I tried looking, and every time I found someone else… Wolfbane, Vulgaris, Lilliana, Leilan, and even… Santana.” the latter of the names is spoken with a flutter in her voice, a girlish giggle and blush that indicated attraction and even something beyond it. “I found you, but, I didn’t have to look far… Nerine and her people have always been yours.”
Briella contemplates the moments between: Aunt or Mother, or even Sister. Heartfire had been all and none, but always one or the other, and she found herself echoing the words… the confirmation that she was family.
“You were always there for me, and I wasn’t sure at first. Maybe I was always hesitant… but you are my family. My mother.” she stated it without any hesitation and allowed the word to convey with it the warmth and love of a child. “I asked the Fairies on the mountain a question, and they sent to find answers… other peoples experiences with friends and family. So that I would better understand what it was to be part of one.”
She admits it with a weight in her words, and Briella cannot help but remain where she was.
@[Heartfire]