There's still life in the Armageddon

Evie

I dreamt in the sound of your voice

and bathed in the color of your love

Evie's crooked smile - only ever so off-center when self-conscious - melts into something more akin to an understanding grimace. "I know what you mean. I still envy Deimos earning partial Attunement, and the Accepted their easy path to the gods. But we all have something that other people want." And maybe that's not the easiest thing to hear when you're actively envious, but Evie has no other answer. Maea's envy is entirely personal, but so is Evie's - even if it's not directed at the Ancient in the same way.

"I didn't know," she admits readily, equally showing more than telling that her changes were far deeper than the surface with how easily she presents her lack of knowledge. "Zariah compelled me to move to Halo for the Academy, but by time I arrived I had already naturally fallen in love with it. Loren is largely what kept me there too, when he made me his right hand in the Infirmary." Providing purpose on a grander scale than her apothecary in the Grounds could have ever reached. And although Maea's words are a compliment greater than she deserves, Evie can do little more than smile bashfully, unwilling to accept it given all the barbs and gnarls that surround those memories of fruitless effort. "Halo's openness with magic changed me forever. I can heal most anything now, even things that aren't strictly physical. I can't imagine continuing to hide it; nobody deserves that." Not even the Ascended, and Evie hopes the Ancient aren't subjected to a similar prejudice given their outward signifiers of race.

And The most beautiful thought
Is the fact that I have always loved you